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.