Leon Turnbull Photography

I finally made it up to Wrights Lake this past weekend. I have been there before of course, but not to see the waterfalls there. I’ve been wanting to get to them for a long time, and now finally was that time.

I was also anxious to try out a couple new things: my new SPOT Connect device, and a couple new brands of deet free mosquito repellent that I bought (Buzz Away Extreme, and Bug Ban). I hate the deet stuff, and have been looking aimlessly for a good alternative. I had initially tried the Repel brand natural repellent that I got at REI, but that just did not do the job satisfactorily. It worked for at most 30 minutes, then you needed to re-apply quickly or the little buggers would eat you up, so I decided to try a couple new brands. What better way to put them to the test than at Wrights Lake. They say that if you are a mosquito and live or want to move to Wrights Lake, you need to first go through a rigorous training regime, five star testing, and are professionally certified for at least 10 different methods of blood extraction. Wrights Lake mosquitoes are the Navy Seals of all mosquitoes. At least, that is what I’ve heard.

I arrived early at the trailhead, hoping it would be a bit colder than it was, as that might encourage the buggers to sleep in a little longer. I forgot I was at Wrights Lake. These mosquitoes are not allowed to sleep. Well, actually, they weren’t biting when I first started the hike, but it warmed up pretty quickly, and out they came to play. After a couple bites, I got out my first brand and sprayed it on: Buzz Away Extreme. The repellent worked and they did not bother me on the rest of the hike up to Twin Lakes.

It is a steady climb up to Twin Lakes and the trail is not very distinct in many places due to the granite rock that you are hiking over. There are some rock cairns to guide you but I think they were put in the wrong place as I somehow got way off the correct trail and ended up scaling the talus slide at the south east end of Twin Lakes, which is definitely not the proper way to go … But it did work. I arrived at the lakes around 7am or so and had plenty of time to photograph the falls before the sun came up over the mountains. The best thing was that there was a stiff breeze which kept the mosquitoes away so I was able to enjoy the location very much. The 214 ft high waterfall dropping into Twin Lakes was still flowing beautifully.

I found the proper trail on the way back down and I followed it along the Twin Lakes Creek for awhile but then I ventured off the main trail, following the creek down to Crystal Basin Falls. It was an easy descent along the granite rock down to the falls. According to my calculations this waterfall would not be in sun until 11:30am. I knew I should have double checked this. The waterfall was in complete sun when I arrived about 10:30. My calculation was way off base and I’m not sure why, but fortune (ie. God) was on my side anyway as there were plenty of clouds passing in front of the sun, allowing me to get at least a decent shot of the waterfall. Crystal Basin Falls is a stunningly gorgeous location. I was thoroughly impressed and I really want to come back here when the creek is flowing at full tilt. The creek forms a marvelously long water slide descending on the smooth granite from Twin Lakes, then finally makes a last plunge of multiple segmented waterfalls 40 ft. high into a drop dead gorgeous swimming hole at the base of the falls.

The mosquitoes apparently also like it here at these falls and pool and started coming after me as soon as I arrived. I tried the second brand of repellent (Bug Ban) and again they stopped bothering me as soon as I applied it and left me alone for the rest of the day. The first brand lasted for three hours which I thought was pretty darn good but more testing on both brands will be required to determine which I like best. They both also had a pleasant citrus smell to them. You’d think mosquitoes would like that, but apparently not.

Instead of hiking back up the creek towards Twin Lakes, I decided to go cross country, cutting across and back to the main trail which follows along the Grouse Lake Creek descending into Wrights Lake. This would save me a lot of mileage and elevation but would it be too brushy? As it turned out, not bad at all. There was even (sort of) a trail, and obviously people had gone this way before, which I thought was odd since the main trail to Crystal Basin Falls comes from the Rockbound Trail, not from this other direction. Anyway it was definitely a much better route back down.

As for the SPOT Connect. I bought this to replace my SPOT 1 as it was on a discount. This allows me to connect with my iPhone via Bluetooth and send text messages to my contacts (even Facebook/twitter). You can send predefined messages or you can type specific messages (with the old SPOT 1, you could just send a generic OK message). The reviews on the iTunes store for the app were not very encouraging so I was a bit worried about buying this but as it turned out, it works quite fine (though not perfect). Setting up the initial Bluetooth connection was not smooth and I had to reboot my phone a couple times but once setup the first time, I have had no troubles reestablishing the connection since. On this hike to Twin Lakes I sent five ok messages to my wife and four got through. I’ve no idea why the fifth one did not go through as I was in an open area and gave it plenty of time to send. This seems to be a quirk with the device (the SPOT 1 had the same problem at times), but it is troubling since the device and app both indicated the message was sent successfully. This is not encouraging especially if it was an emergency situation but my only thought on this is to just deal with the quirkiness and send messages as often as possible, and most of the time they should get sent okay. The Bluetooth connection does (not surprisingly) eat up the batteries on the phone and to help with this I disconnected while I was hiking then reestablished the connection when I was ready to send the next message. This battery problem would be a big issue on an overnight backpacking trip but not really a big deal for a day hike.