This is Lower Garnet Lake Falls, about 30 ft. high. Three fantastic waterfalls on the same stream, so close to each other. I think I hit it at peak snow melt for this year too. In a normal year there would be a lot more flow of course, but for this year, this was about peak flow.
This one is by far the most spectacular waterfall we saw on our Eastern Sierra backpack, and I was not expecting it at all!
From Garnet Lake Falls, we continued hiking downwards to the MF San Joaquin River. It is only a half mile, but you lose about 600 ft. in elevation. It is steep, but going down is pretty easy. There is a trail but it was difficult to follow because of snow cover and because it is just not very clear in places, so of course I just continued to head straight down through the woods when the trail was temporarily lost, knowing we would get to the river before too much longer. Jadon did not at all like “not being on a happy, maintained trail”. During these times, he was constantly searching for any remnant of such trail.
The creek from Garnet Lake descends steeply, as you might imagine, losing 600 ft. in a half mile. And thus, you might imagine, there are waterfalls. The big one here I am calling Middle Garnet Lake Falls. I suppose one could possibly think of the entire stream from top to bottom as one huge waterfall, but really it is not. There is distinct separation between them. After the first falls at the lake outlet, the stream levels out for quite awhile (still descending, though), until it reaches this middle section where it drops vertically and huge. I estimate this middle falls to be about 150 ft. high, and it was easy enough to get right up beside it from along the “trail”. It was an amazing and glorious sight.
Eastern Sierra Waterfalls Part II …
Although Thousand Island Lake was all right, I much preferred Garnet Lake and in fact fell in love with that lake. That was to be our second night destination. It was certainly not snowed in as the Ranger said though we did encounter a little bit of snow on the trail, but nothing that was a problem. The trail climbs up to over 10,000 feet in elevation before going back down to the lake. I think the elevation affected Jadon a bit, but it didn’t seem to bother me all that much. We arrived early at the lake and promptly snagged the best campsite at the lake. There is not a lot of shade at Garnet Lake either, but our campsite had quite of bit of nice shade. There was no one else there, and we had the whole lake to ourselves. Garnet Lake I thought is much prettier than Thousand Island Lake, and it has impressive Ritter peak looming over it as well. We had views of a waterfall across the lake, and a bald eagle soaring overhead. Chipmunks scooted about our campsite, and of course we can’t forget to mention the marmots again as well.
However, in the afternoon the wind picked up tremendously. It was blowing our tent around like a ragged doll and with no sight of tomorrow, and it seemed to be getting worse not better. There was no better place to move the tent out of the wind. Now to be certain the tent held up tremendously and remained steadfast, and I have no doubt that it would have remained secure during the night. The problem was me, I would not have gotten any sleep worrying about the wind shaking us all night long. Jadon said the same thing, namely that he was not going to be able to sleep. So I offered an alternative to him: we could hike back to the car that evening, arriving a little after dark. I was truly okay with either option, a nice lazy day and semi relaxing hike back the next day, or a gangbuster hike back to the car that evening and then a long drive home getting back to our comfortable beds very late. Quite surprisingly Jadon pounced on the alternative to hike back that night. I did not think he would have the energy for another long hike that day.
My personal ulterior motive in hiking back that evening was the waterfalls. I would get to see six more waterfalls in good lighting conditions. If we did the other option and left the next day, I would only get to see one waterfall at most in good light, possibly none. Now you know why I suggested this alternative option to Jadon.
The hike down to the bottom of the canyon from the end of Garnet Lake was treacherous, to put it mildly. It is very steep and it was snow-covered. People had been down already, but it was potentially quite dangerous, so I sent Jadon ahead first to test the snow pack. I am kidding, I went out first! It was not icy and it was firm enough that you did not sink in, as long as you were careful. And we were extremely careful as we hiked down that snowy path, making one sure step at a time. We made it down to the big waterfall at the outlet of the lake, but it was still in the sun so we had to wait and wait and wait, about 30 minutes before I could take my photo. That was probably the biggest thing that delayed our long hike back to the car. It was also impossible to get a good clear view of this waterfall; if the flow was lower I probably could have crossed the stream to get a better view point, but that was certainly not happening today. Bummer. Nonetheless, it is not a bad photo, eh?
We continued down to the bottom of the canyon stopping at the waterfalls along the way. Five more waterfalls. I was a happy camper. Many more pictures to come.
Now we just had to hike back along the river. I knew there was a trail on the south side of the river but it is not a marked trail, and it was very difficult to follow in places, disappearing into obscurity in some spots, fallen logs to clamber over, some treacherous cliffy terrain to negotiate. It took a much longer time than I anticipated. Jadon did not like the trail much but I suppose it could have been a lot worse. We finally got back to the main trail at about sunset. We still had about 2 miles to hike back to the car and we arrived in the dark at 9:15 PM. Not really too bad at all, and I thought Jadon did very well on that long hike back, but he was very tired at the end. Nonetheless, we did it. We got home at about 1:30 AM and of course we slept in the next day.
Eastern Sierra Waterfalls Part I ….
This backpacking trip in the Eastern Sierra has been on my list for a long time. They say the views on this trail are among the best, if not the absolute best, in the entire Sierra Nevada. Well, I made it a priority to do it this year. I dragged my son Jadon along with me, as well. He actually came willingly, and not kicking and screaming. Timing is critical for this hike. I had to wait for the road to open (which is usually very late, but due to the drought was open much earlier this year), and early enough so the waterfalls are still flowing, and most important early enough to avoid the mosquitoes. I went the weekend after the road first opened, and I think I timed it perfectly.
We arrived at Mammoth Lakes in the afternoon and picked up our wilderness permits. The Ranger said that the trail to 1000 Island Lake was clear but Garnet Lake was still snowed in. That was to be our second night destination. Humph, well we would just have to see. Her information was a week old, and it was a very warm week, so I had high doubts her information was still valid. We had an early and delicious pizza dinner, and then went on a couple evening waterfall hikes.
I have been to the upper Mammoth Creek Falls before but it was 7 years ago. For some reason I did not make it to the lower Falls and I do not remember why. Now there is a bike path all the way down the road from the Twin Lakes which was not there before, so you have to park up at the Twin Lakes outlet. No big deal. We walked down the bike trail and found an easy going path down to the lower Falls. It is perhaps smaller than the upper Falls but much nicer because it is more of a drop than a cascade. We then went to the upper Falls and also to the Twin Lakes waterfall, and then we drove out to our backpacking trailhead for the night. All those photos will be upcoming.
The thermometer said it got down to 33° at night but we were not cold. if you remember, I previously said on my first test of my new sleeping bag at Yosemite that I was freezing cold even though it was only about 45°. Since then, the sleeping bag has kept me cozy warm at night. Maybe it just needed a couple nights to break in. Do sleeping bags need a breaking in period? Then again, maybe I just got lucky tonight. Who knows.
Well we got up very early. I wanted to get to a couple waterfalls on the trail before the sun got to them so I made my son walk quickly for the first couple miles. It was going to be a very difficult and long hike that day but I promised him that after these waterfalls we would take it easy for the rest of the hike, and we did. The first waterfall was the Shadow Lake waterfall which I shot from a distance away. The second one was this falls on the Middle Fork San Joaquin River. This is the first of eight significant waterfalls on this river (above Devils Postpile) and they are little documented. That is surprising since the trail goes right by them. This first one is the biggest and most impressive, about 50 feet high. I had thought it might be to cliffy to get down to see this one, but it turned out to be fairly easy. Even Jadon got down to it easily.
After seeing this falls we took it easy as promised. It is in total about a 7 mile hike to 1000 Island Lake and it climbs 1600 feet in elevation, but it is the high elevation that makes it so difficult. The elevation up at the lake is 9800 feet. I have heard that some people have done this as a day hike but I do not see how. There is no way I could do it because of the high elevation. I would die. We arrived at the lake a little before noon and we were both dead tired. All in all I thought Jadon did extremely well. That was a very difficult hike. We ate our lunch and then found a campsite, which we shared with the Marmots and pikas; one marmot in particular was trying hard to get into our bear canister with us standing right there. He did not mind us being there whatsoever. Fortunately, marmots are not any smarter than bears and he could not open the bear canister. Something about opposable thumbs. Actually, it’s hard enough for humans to open, never mind bears.
Thousand Island Lake is lovely and the views of Ritter peak and Ritter range are astounding. But … I was not really overly impressed with it. There is absolutely zero shade at the lake and it was a very hot day and there was nowhere to hide from the sun. Also it is a very popular destination and there were quite a few other backpackers at the lake. One large group in particular quite annoyed me. Even though they were camped quite a distance away from us, they were perturbingly loud and woke us well before sunrise. I guess they got up and went down to the lakeside to see the sunrise, but they were very loud and obnoxious and their sound carried across the lake and woke us. Argh. Have some respect, people. I got up myself to shoot the sunrise, but unfortunately the sky was perfectly clear with no clouds or any color. It still would have been quite peaceful and lovely, if I could have zapped that large group out of existence. Ah well. We took it easy that morning, had a relaxing breakfast, and slowly packed up our gear for that day’s hike.
More to come …
We have a small storm coming into our area this weekend, but it is not supposed to give us very much precipitation. I am so anxious for winter to get started here, we need a lot more rain before the waterfalls get going. It was in the 80’s this past week, if you can believe it. It is November, right?
In the meantime, while we wait for the winter rain to get started, here is one more from Lundy Canyon. This is the very bottom of the monster 537 ft. high waterfall in Lundy Canyon. You can sort of see the upper section if you look closely. It is an incredibly neat spot. I love how this section drops through this very narrow slot at the bottom. I really want to come back here in the spring when the creek is rushing through here. However, it might be impossible to get to this spot because it requires crossing the creek, which is probably not going to be possible in the spring.