For my second trip of the week I would take Journey with me. This hike was a little higher elevation so I hoped rattlesnakes would not be an issue. Yes I know rattlesnakes exist at higher elevations but they are much more common at lower elevation. I figured above 4500 feet the risk is OK. This hike starts at 4000 and goes up to 6000. Crossing fingers.
The Trinity Alps seems to have more deer than anywhere else in California. On the drive to the trailhead I saw over 10 deer along the road. I wondered what would happen if the deer came into our camp when Journey was there? Will the deer just not even come close to us? Or would Journey chase them off into the woods? I hoped it would be the former.
We started hiking at about 8AM. It is a 5 mile hike with 2000 feet elevation gain. It started out overcast so I thought maybe we could get to the first waterfall with good lighting. However, just before we got there I realized I lost my GoPro. What the heck? How far back was it? I had no idea. We dropped our packs and went back down the trail. Thank the Lord I found it. We got back to our dropped packs and now it was sunny. Ah well. We took a good break and Journey rested. We made it to Granite Lake at about noon and had our lunch. There was another group here and they had taken the best campsite, the only one that has a good view of the lake. It is very brushy around the lake so it is not possible to get down to the lake shore (at least not easily). Well that was a bummer but I found a nice large open area opposite them. At least I was able to take photos of the big waterfall dropping into the lake. Journey barked at the other campers a bit even though we were over 200 feet away from them. I think that when they went to get their water they had to come closer towards us and Journey did not like that. Ha ha. It is quite strange for her to bark when mom is not around. Usually she is absolutely perfect with me.
In the afternoon, the clouds rolled in. The weather forecast said there was a 30% chance of thunderstorms. I figured we should go see the waterfalls before that happened. There are multiple waterfalls here. There’s a big huge one dropping into the lake as I mentioned. The upper falls is a gorgeous 60 ft. drop (pictured here). The middle falls is about 25 ft. and the lower falls about 20 ft. A couple others were just too difficult to get to. Too brushy. Much too difficult, especially for Journey. She does not like the brush and this brush was very bad. We were eating the brush it was so bad. Even this upper falls had some that we had to crash through. At least we got to some of the waterfalls though.
I heated up a nice dehydrated dinner for her (thanks to my wife for making it) and we went to bed early. She was pooped out and went right to sleep when we got in the tent. Day one is over. Day two is about to begin.
