I have been sick (again). I have not been hiking in a few weeks. Finally this weekend I felt like 100% again so I thought it would be good to take Journey on one last backpacking trip before summer. I thought about going to Eastern Sierra but I just did not feel like making the long drive over there and Journey hates long car rides so it would not be good for her either. How about something closer to home? How about the Desolation Wilderness?
It was supposed to be windy all day Saturday. That would keep the mosquitoes away. Sunday would be a different story. We arrived at Mosquito City (aka Wrights Lake) just before 9AM. The wind had not started yet but there were no mosquitoes so that was good. The recreation area is not open (which was very surprising) so we had to park before the gate which adds a half mile or so to the hike. The parking lot was already almost full.
We started our hike. The wind started right on time at 9AM. My pack was very heavy. It was 40 pounds because I was carrying all Journey’s stuff as well. I need to buy her a new pack but I have not done it yet so I figured I would just carry all her stuff this time. I am sure she was happy about that. Me, not so much.
About halfway you have to cross Silver Creek. I was a bit shocked how much water was flowing in the creek. It was deep and up to Journey’s belly. She was leery but she did well crossing it.
The total hike is 8 miles one way with 1500 ft. elevation gain. That is not so bad except almost all the gain is in the last two miles before the pass. This was a very tough climb. I was absolutely beat. Heavy pack, no exercise in weeks, you get the picture. Journey seemed to do well but if she was carrying a pack she would have struggled.
When we got to the top of Rockbound Pass it was extremely windy. It was almost blowing us off our feet. We quickly continued off the pass and encountered a lot of snow on the north side. Journey was ecstatic about the snow, running back and forth down the steep slope while I carefully tried to make my way down without slipping and falling. Journey has built in micro-spikes on her feet. Ha ha.
It was very windy at Lake Lois where we planned to camp. There was one group camped at a spot just before the lake and they may have been out of the wind for the most part but there was no other place. We crossed the outlet stream to the spot I camped at last time. It was very windy here but there was nothing else so I set up camp here. Once I got the tent set up I was happy with how it was handling the wind. The gusts were 50mph and they were constant. The tent was being blown to pieces but it was holding up.
I could not cook my dinner because the wind blew out my stove immediately. I tried to block it from the wind with big rocks but that did not work. The only way I could cook is from the tent vestibule which was out of the wind so Journey and I sat in the tent while I made dinner in the vestibule. Journey thoroughly enjoyed the dehydrated meal that mom made for her. After dinner we had 1.5 hours before we had to go on our evening hike. Sitting outside in the wind was out of the question so we laid down in the tent. I forgot my kindle (stupid) so all I could do is listen to the wind batter my tent to bits for 1.5 hours. It was crazy.
In the evening we hiked down to Lake Schmidell. It is only a half mile but a big 500 ft. descent. Coming back up afterwards was tough because I was so tired. There was not much wind down at Lake Schmidell but there were mosquitoes. My goal on this trip was to photograph the two waterfalls at Lake Schmidell and Lake Lois as they were all covered in snow the last time I was here. They are not great waterfalls but I thought the one at Schmidell would be a lot better (pictured here). You could not get up close to it and there were a lot of trees blocking the view. Well, I managed and did the best I could.
When we got back up to our camp at Lake Lois the wind had died down. It was still quite windy but it was not crazy wind. We got into bed and (tried) to go to sleep.
It was Mother’s Day. I thought I would invite my wife on a hike. This would be her first hike since her hip surgery. I thought a 2 mile round trip hike with 500 ft. elevation gain would be a good one for her. She thought so as well. Journey was like: Huh? Mom is coming hiking with us? Woo hoo!!
The plan: Little Robinson’s Valley Falls. Tara has never been up to Robinsons Flat before. Shocking perhaps, but all the hikes up here are very difficult, so perhaps not. Along the way, I pointed out all the significant locations: Mumford Bar, Beacroft, Ford Point, West Fork New Canyon, Tadpole, Canada Hill, Sailor Flat, New York Canyon, and finally Robinsons Flat. She was like: I don’t care. None of these places mean anything to me whatsoever (joke). I was like: But these are my favorite places in the world!
We arrived at the trailhead. No one was around at all. There was still a tiny bit of snow at the beginning but that soon disappeared. Journey had the zoomies running back and forth on the little snow patch as we started hiking. She was very happy. There were quite a few gnats but not any mosquitoes. They were a bit annoying.
It took longer than I expected hiking down to the waterfalls. Tara had trouble walking on the loose rocks and had to go very slowly. There were quite a lot of them. Journey hiked close to mom the entire way, waiting patiently for her and not running ahead. We made it down to the upper falls. It was late now so I left Journey with Tara while I quickly went down to the lower falls. I took some photos and hurried back. We had an hour to make it back up the hill before sunset. We did it, getting back to the car just as the sun was setting. Tara did very well on her first hike after surgery. It was a grand ole Mother’s Day at my favorite area in Tahoe National Forest.
I think we both slept pretty well. It was not cold. The Stellar Jays woke us up at 5:30 AM. They were right outside our tent and they were loud! We got out of bed, started packing up and making breakfast. There were mosquitoes! They were not biting yet, but they were quite annoying. Especially because there are not supposed to be mosquitoes right now. That’s why I go hiking in April and early May in the first place. Journey enjoyed exploring all around the large campsite area in the morning. The previous day she did not really do that because she was too tired.
We left at about 8AM. As soon as I put her pack on and we started hiking, she started going really, really slow, and acting like she do not wanna hike at all. I was sure the pack was not rubbing against her legs like it did last time. But maybe it was? Something was wrong. Was it pinching her somehow? She was not really acting like she was in pain or anything, just that she did not want to hike. I decided to carry the pack for her. At least it was all downhill from here. I think we’re gonna have to try a different pack for her next time.
It was a cloudy day with a storm coming in the afternoon. This made it easy to get to the lower falls in good light. It’s a steep descent down to the bottom of the waterfall but Journey and I made it without difficulty. There was a lot of mist at the bottom making it difficult to take photos. Lower Granite Creek was flowing tremendously. It is a cool little waterfall. I measured it to be 20 ft. high but it seemed more than that.
I took a fall. I stepped on a log. It looked to be dry. It was not. I slipped and fell hard on my shoulder. It could have broken but thankfully it did not; nonetheless I was in pain for quite a few days. I lay on the ground for about five minutes trying to recover. Journey was like: what are you doing on the ground, daddy? Let’s get going! That is quite ironic because she was stopping to sniff every other bush on the way down the hill.
We made it back to the car and drove home. Trip two is over. It was a fantastic backpacking trip with Journey into the Trinity Alps Wilderness.
For my second trip of the week I would take Journey with me. This hike was a little higher elevation so I hoped rattlesnakes would not be an issue. Yes I know rattlesnakes exist at higher elevations but they are much more common at lower elevation. I figured above 4500 feet the risk is OK. This hike starts at 4000 and goes up to 6000. Crossing fingers.
The Trinity Alps seems to have more deer than anywhere else in California. On the drive to the trailhead I saw over 10 deer along the road. I wondered what would happen if the deer came into our camp when Journey was there? Will the deer just not even come close to us? Or would Journey chase them off into the woods? I hoped it would be the former.
We started hiking at about 8AM. It is a 5 mile hike with 2000 feet elevation gain. It started out overcast so I thought maybe we could get to the first waterfall with good lighting. However, just before we got there I realized I lost my GoPro. What the heck? How far back was it? I had no idea. We dropped our packs and went back down the trail. Thank the Lord I found it. We got back to our dropped packs and now it was sunny. Ah well. We took a good break and Journey rested. We made it to Granite Lake at about noon and had our lunch. There was another group here and they had taken the best campsite, the only one that has a good view of the lake. It is very brushy around the lake so it is not possible to get down to the lake shore (at least not easily). Well that was a bummer but I found a nice large open area opposite them. At least I was able to take photos of the big waterfall dropping into the lake. Journey barked at the other campers a bit even though we were over 200 feet away from them. I think that when they went to get their water they had to come closer towards us and Journey did not like that. Ha ha. It is quite strange for her to bark when mom is not around. Usually she is absolutely perfect with me.
In the afternoon, the clouds rolled in. The weather forecast said there was a 30% chance of thunderstorms. I figured we should go see the waterfalls before that happened. There are multiple waterfalls here. There’s a big huge one dropping into the lake as I mentioned. The upper falls is a gorgeous 60 ft. drop (pictured here). The middle falls is about 25 ft. and the lower falls about 20 ft. A couple others were just too difficult to get to. Too brushy. Much too difficult, especially for Journey. She does not like the brush and this brush was very bad. We were eating the brush it was so bad. Even this upper falls had some that we had to crash through. At least we got to some of the waterfalls though.
I heated up a nice dehydrated dinner for her (thanks to my wife for making it) and we went to bed early. She was pooped out and went right to sleep when we got in the tent. Day one is over. Day two is about to begin.
After I got in my tent at Emerald Lake, more deer came into my camp. One of them slept all night right outside my tent. I could hear it making noises in the night.
In the morning I went down to Stuart Fork Falls first thing. There is no good view of this waterfall. I suppose this is the reason I have never seen a good picture of it before. You can only see the lower tier, the main upper section is mostly hidden. I had hoped to find a better viewpoint. Bummer. However … I pondered the situation. Hmmmm …. Could I climb up the lower tier to reach the main drop? It looked possible. Was it stupid? No. It was a bit sketchy but I made it up and over to the bottom of the waterfall.
Stuart Fork Falls is much better than I expected it to be. It is a beautiful 30 ft. drop (not including the lower 16 ft. section). No one has ever done this before? It is completely worthwhile to get up close to it. Three awesome waterfalls on this trip. I was so happy.
I returned to camp to find more deer. However, they all ran away when I approached. This is what deer are supposed to do! Much unlike those thieves at Morris Meadow.
It is a long 13 mile hike from Emerald Lake back to my car but mostly downhill, thankfully. I started at 8AM and finished at 2:30PM. It was a stupendous backpacking trip into the Trinity Alps Wilderness. Trip number one is over. Trip number two is about to begin.
