I slept fairly well in my tent every night. That is quite unusual for me. I’m not complaining. I have a new pad and a new pillow. Maybe that is the reason. (shrug shoulders)
I got up at a decent hour (not too early, not too late) and had a good breakfast. This would be a long day and almost all of it completely off-trail. What was I getting myself into?
The first huge obstacle is crossing Frog Creek. Frog Creek is a major crossing. This is the only way to access Edith Lake. When I was up at Lake Eleanor last month I could not cross it. Now we are in the middle of a heat wave. The Tuolumne River was flowing at 2400 cfs. Snow melt was at its peak. Frog Creek would be near its highest for the year. The last gasp for the rivers and creeks. I was 95% sure I would not be able to cross it. I had a backup plan but I had to give this a try. This was my third attempt at getting to Edith Lake. A couple years ago I tried via a different route. The wrong route. I completely and totally underestimated the difficulty and I had to bail. Last year I had a permit for the proper route, however, as we all know last year was an epic snow year. It is impossible to know what the weather and snow conditions are going to be like when you need to reserve your permit months in advance. When my permit time came around there was still snow. Going down to Edith Lake when there is still snow would have been deadly. (now that I have been there I know this to be true). The granite rock you go down is incredibly steep and can only be done when the rock is completely dry. I wisely canceled my permit. Third time is a charm, right?
Frog Creek was high. It did not look possible to cross. Or was there a way? There were some logs. I was able to wade half way across the creek in an easy section and then cross the difficult part on logs. It was a bit sketchy but I was able to cross it safely. If the logs were not there I am not sure if I could have crossed it.
There is a lot of brush on the route, most notably on the immediate other side of the creek. It was manageable though and I had a good route loaded into my GPS that avoided much of it. I never felt like I needed to turn back so it couldn’t have been that bad, right? It did seem worse on the return trip, however, and I will talk more about this on DAY 4.
It is a long off trail hike but finally I came to the end of the ridge above Edith Lake. The view is absolutely stunning. I could see the lake below me and in the far distance, the big waterfall. That was my destination. Wow. It was so far away. I was dead tired. There was no way I could make it there.
I decided that I would need to camp at Edith Lake and try to make it to the big waterfall in the morning. It is a very steep descent down to Edith Lake on granite rock. There are cliffs that you need to avoid. In fact there are a lot of cliffs all over the place. It takes a long time to pick your way down and around them. Once down at the lake there is a lot of brush. This also took a long time to get through and find somewhere to camp. Eventually I found it: the perfect spot overlooking the lake. There was absolutely no one else around.
There were many reasons why I had not planned to camp at Edith Lake but it turned out to be the absolute best thing to do. One reason was that all the waterfalls down here were very difficult to reach. I underestimated them and could not have seen them all if I had camped elsewhere. A second reason was mosquitoes. I knew they would be horrible. HOWEVER … mosquitoes were actually a non-issue. There was a good stiff breeze on both days I camped here. There were no mosquitoes. They only came out once the wind died down after sunset and I was already in my tent. This was not luck. I am 100% certain this was a direct blessing from the Lord. There was not much wind the prior day at Lake Vernon or the day I left Edith. Only on the two precise days I was here there was a wind? That is no coincidence.
The Edith Lake waterfall drops about 215 feet into the lake. It is a pretty decent view from my campsite and this is where I photographed it. I did make an attempt to get up close to it but it proved impossible. The only way to do it would be in a raft. Am I going to drag my raft all the way down here? No chance. The hike is way too difficult. Maybe a small light dinghy would be good but I am never going to be back here again. I just enjoyed the view of the waterfall from my campsite.
