Leon Turnbull Photography

I was very tired from the previous day’s hiking, but I did not sleep. I have no idea why I could not sleep. I should have been plenty tired. It was not cold (indeed, I was 1000 ft. higher in elevation and it was warmer than the first night). Well, I got up at 4AM, packed up my gear, and started my hike. It was very dark. There was no moon. There were plenty of stars.

The first part of this hike, there is no trail. The route goes through the (dark) woods, and across a (dark) meadow. Perfect habitat for wild animals. The previous night I saw many deer in this area. Where there are deer, there are mountain lions. I also saw fresh bear scat. I whistled loudly as I walked through this area. When I hike (in the dark), I always whistle the “ru ku ku” song from SCTV. If you know what that is, you are awesome (it’s a Canadian thing). Once I got on the actual trail, it was a bit less nerve wracking, but it was still dark and ominous. Back down around Ediza Lake, some people had put up their tents right beside the trail (or right in the middle of the trail in one case), so I had to walk right through their camping area, hoping not to wake them and freak them out.

I arrived down at Shadow Creek Falls (pictured here) (40 ft.) at sunrise. I was right on time. It is a gorgeous waterfall, and Shadow Creek (as I said already) was flowing very strong for so late in the year. There were some people down here at the base of the falls eating breakfast. This is not a legal place to camp, and I’m not sure if they were camping here or just eating breakfast here as they had all their gear packed up already. They were friendly, considering as I was disturbing their breakfast to photograph the waterfall. I did not talk to them much, I was in a hurry to photograph the falls and get going to the next one. As it is, I barely made it down to Shadow Lake Falls, the last waterfall on my journey. I only had about 2 minutes to photograph it before the sun got on it.

Now finally I could relax. I ate my breakfast at the viewpoint to Shadow Lake Falls. I still had a very long hike ahead of me. It was another 7 miles back to my vehicle (12 total for the day). It was very tiring, and I was beat, even  thought it was mostly downhill, and once I got down to the river level it was not all that majestically scenic any longer (compared to what I had been hiking through). I think the previous day really wore me out, and I was extra tired from not getting any sleep. I tried to cut off 1 mile of the hike by hiking on the road for the last little bit, but that was a huge mistake. Hiking on the pavement was very hard on my feet, and I do not even think I saved a half mile of hiking, let alone 1 mile of hiking. I finally made it back to my car at 11:30am. I drove up to John’s Pizza Works in Mammoth Lakes for lunch, then made the long drive home. At least the highway was now open. I slept well in my bed that night. It was an awesome 3 days in the Ansel Adams Wilderness.

I took my time in the morning, slept in a bit, ate breakfast and drank coffee. I had a tough day ahead of me.

I hiked up to Minaret Lake and found another new waterfall at the outlet, about 60 ft. high. Surprise! It was in the sun but I still took a photo of it. If I had known this was here, I probably could have gotten to it in good lighting. I studied all this area on Google Earth, but did not see this waterfall. Minaret Lake was gorgeous, as expected.

From here I had to climb the monstrous cliffs above the lake and over the pass to get to the other side. There is no trail. I had read there was a route that people used. I read it was steep. I read it was very steep. But it was not too difficult. I made it to the top. 10,300 ft. in elevation. I thought that would be the most difficult part of the hike today. Wrong. I went down to Cecile Lake and ate my lunch.

I thought the trek from Cecile Lake down to Iceberg Lake would be a piece of cake. There is an established trail, you can even see it on Google Earth. Nope. It was very steep, it was very treacherous, the ground and rocks were very loose and unstable. I had to slide down on my butt in the dirt a few times, and be extremely cautious as I descended. If you fell, you would end up allthe way to the bottom where there was a big snow field at lake level. A soft landing? Once down the steepest section, you are not done yet. You have to traverse over a huge talus slide to the other end of Iceberg Lake. The rocks are sometimes shifting, it is very slow going. One hiker I passed called this the Wall of Death. I thought it was a very appropriate description. It took a very long time.

Finally I arrived at the end of Iceberg Lake. There was no shade here, but I found a little bit behind a rock and rested. The hard part (the Wall of Death) was behind me. The rest of the hike would be easy.

As I hiked down to Ediza Lake, I noticed a large waterfall at the inlet to the lake. Another surprise. I had not known about this waterfall either, and this one looked like a very good one. I decided to change my plan. Initially I was going to camp up at Nydiver Lakes, but now I would camp at Ediza Lake and close to this waterfall, or better yet, at the waterfall.

Ediza Lake is supposed to be the prettiest of all the lakes in this area. Everyone seems to say this. It was certainly pretty, but no prettier than Minaret, Cecile, Iceberg, or Shadow Lakes. They were all equally gorgeous in my view. But Ediza Lake is by far the most popular lake to camp at, and there were a lot of people here already and it was still early. I prefer to camp in secluded spots with no one else around me. I figured there would not be anyone at the waterfall, if I could get up to it, and and if I could find a campsite there. It is a bit of a climb from Ediza Lake up to the falls, but not too difficult. There were not really any good options for camping there, but I found one small spot to put my tent. Not too shabby.

After dinner, I decided to go on an evening hike. I still hoped to get to the Nydiver Lakes waterfalls. However, I found that creek completely dry. I was not expecting much for that creek, but I did not think it would be all dried up. Instead, I went down to the Upper Shadow Creek Falls and photographed that waterfall (30 ft.). It was a little far to hike considering how tired I already was, but I guess it was worth it. Shadow Creek was flowing surprisingly strong for this late in the year. It is a glacier fed creek, so perhaps that is the reason (but so is Minaret Creek and that had much less flow). I hiked back to camp, arriving just before dark, and photographed the waterfall at my campsite (shown here), a marvelous 40 ft. high falls. I slumped into my tent and to bed.

I snagged a hard to get permit for Minaret Lake in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, a place I have wanted to go for a long time. My plan was to photograph Upper Minaret Falls in the evening, then hike up to the lake afterwards. However, it is a tough climb from the falls to the lake, and I probably would not make it there by sunset. By the time I got up there, it would be dark, and there would not be any good camping spots left as it is a popular place to camp, plus with no clouds in the forecast, there would not be much of a sunset at the lake anyway. A better option and a much easier option would be to just camp at the upper falls, and go up to the lake in the morning. Take it easy. Don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy.

When I left the house, Hwy 395 was closed due to the Boot Fire, which was burning on both sides of the highway. Hwy 108 was also closed. Going through Yosemite to the Eastern Sierra would take much much longer. The official detour when through Nevada. It probably only added a half hour to my drive, but the speed limit is slower in Nevada. I heard from someone that the Nevada highway patrol like to pull over those speedy Californians, so I made sure not to speed (and I did see one person pulled over along the way).

I finally arrived at Mammoth Lakes, picked up my permit, and started hiking by 10am. The first section is on the John Muir Trail, and I saw many JMT hikers coming down into Reds Meadow. I think I gave one of them bad directions. I’m sorry about that. However, if you are a through hiker (or any type of hiker), you should know where you are going. I don’t think I would ever want to hike the JMT. It is just not my cup of tea. Most certainly, I would never hike the PCT. These through hikers just whip through the trail as fast as they can, and they miss seeing half of the great sites or more. I would much rather hike a short portion of it and see all the great sites (ie. ALL THE WATERFALLS) in that area. I have been thinking recently, however, that I might want to hike the entire High Sierra Trail; that one might work for me, but even so, I think everyone hiking that trail misses seeing at least half the waterfalls. I might rather just do a short section of that trail as well. Next year, perhaps.

After I got off the JMT section, I did not see anyone else on the trail up to the waterfall (I did see others going up to Minaret Lake later). I found a perfect campsite near the bottom of the falls. The waterfall was flowing decent, better than I expected for so late in the year. It was not great, but not bad. It was a beautiful spot.

However … as soon as I arrived at the camp, I smelled smoke in the air. I did not think there were any fires in the area. There had not been any smoke at all until I got to this one location at the waterfall. Was this a new fire? Did some idiot leave an illegal campfire unattended? I checked all around but I saw nothing and no one. I just prayed there were no new fires and I would not get burned to a crisp while I slept. Everyone (including myself) is too paranoid this year because of all the fires. A little smoke freaks everyone out (including myself). As it turned out, I think the smoke was from the Lions Fire, but it was strange because it was only in this one little area.

I had my dinner, relaxed for a long time waiting for the sun to go down, and texted my wife (there was cell service here). In the evening I went up to photograph the upper falls (shown here), and another waterfall I discovered close by as well. It was a glorious day.

This is the fifth waterfall on the Middle Fork San Joaquin River. It is perhaps the smallest, about 20 ft. high, but it is a purdy one and quite unique looking.

It is summer time, and in the drought not much is happening. The latest news about El Nino is that it continues to increase. It is almost up to moderate strength now, and we are still praying it continues to increase so by winter time it is up to strong strength. There have only been four strong El Ninos since 1950, three have resulted in above average precipitation for California, and the fourth one was an average year. I will take average after the last four dismal years, but let’s hope and pray this drought is finally busted this year.

This is the fourth waterfall on the beautiful Middle Fork San Joaquin River, 30 ft. high.

June has been awfully hot, much too hot to go hiking, and there is no end to the heat in sight. I’ve been taking it easy at home on the weekends lately. I don’t imagine July or August will be any better. The waterfalls are already done for the year. What am I going to do all summer? Stay home and get fat? No no no.