Leon Turnbull Photography

I am not one who normally likes to climb mountain peaks. Before this past week, I can only think of one mountain I have climbed in the past few years. I will climb up mountains, with or without a trail, with or without cliffs, in order to get to a waterfall. But waterfalls do not exist at the very top of mountains. Right? So what is the point in climbing a mountain? It is too much hard work!

Nonetheless, on July 4, I had a stupendously great idea: climb to the top of Pyramid Peak. At 9983 ft., it is the highest mountain in the Desolation Wilderness, and third highest in the Lake Tahoe area. Along the way, I would stop at a new waterfall that I had not seen before. It was going to be an epic day!

It is not an easy hike to the top of Pyramid Peak. There is no defined trail, and I would be going the long way up. There are three main “routes” to the top (no “trails”). The one I chose was the longest route, 6.1 miles, but also the easiest (supposedly), with the least amount of elevation gain (3300 ft. in total). The main reason I chose this route was because of the waterfall.

I started hiking before sunrise. I wanted to get to that waterfall first, before the sun. It was almost five miles to the falls. I hiked quickly. Thankfully, these five miles are somewhat tame in elevation gain (and this first 5 miles was also on a defined trail). The hard part would come later.

Along the way, I came across a bear. It was the first bear I have seen this year! Considering that I have backpacked in a number of wilderness areas this year, including the bear haven of Yosemite National Park, it is surprising I have not seen any bears yet. Technically, I was not even in the wilderness yet when I saw this one. But I was happy! A great start to my epic day. I got within 20 feet of the bear before either of us saw each other. Then he took off like a scalded cat. I only saw his big brown behind.

I came to the waterfall just a little before the sun. Not really a great waterfall but it was pretty and it was over the minimum 20 ft. high. I took some photos then psyched myself up for the upcoming tough part of the hike. I still had 2000 more feet to climb in about a mile. In case you are wondering, that is a lot!

From Lake Sylvia, there is, supposedly, an obvious notch that you need to climb up to get up on the ridge leading up to Pyramid Peak. It is, supposedly, not very difficult to climb up. I could see the notch. It looked horrifically steep and cliffy! Well, I worked my way over to the bottom of it. I could see a path going up a secondary notch. This must be the correct way. People have obviously gone up here before. The other notch would be far too cliffy. I started up. Before long, however, the path became incredibly steep, crumbly, and dangerous. But this must be the correct way! I hemmed and hawed for a long time, then decided to turn around and go back. It was too steep. A fall here could easily result in broken bones, if nothing worse. So now what? Do I go back home?

Before doing that, I decided to go over to the other notch, although I was sure it would be far worse. However, when I got over to it, I saw a well defined path going up the mountain. This was the proper trail! It was not too steep or dangerous. It was pretty easy (except that you are climbing up a mountain with lots of elevation gain). I got up to the ridge in short order. Now I just to climb up the ridge to the top. There was still 1400 ft. of elevation gain to go, now much less than a mile. It was very slow and took a long time. The last section was a jumble of huge rocks that you needed to climb up. I found it very fascinating, obviously volcanic in origin, but it was not easy to climb up (or down). However, the marmots sure must love all these rocks. There were a lot of them around, especially at the top. I got lots of video of them ( so watch for my upcoming video of this hike).

I was not the first one to the peak. In fact, there were a lot of other people climbing up Pyramid Peak on July 4. No doubt because it was a holiday, this was the reason. I would have liked to have some alone time on the peak for a while. If I had not messed around for 45 minutes trying to climb up that other notch, I would have been the first to the top. Ugh. Oh well. I took my time at the top, had my lunch with the marmots, and of course took some photos. There was a lot of haze from the fires in California (one big fire, anyway). I could see Lake Tahoe, barely, off in the distance through the haze.

A trio of East Indian guys came up while I was eating. It was a bit funny because they totally freaked out when they saw the marmots. They thought they were skunks, or some other dangerous animal. I reassured them that marmots were harmless, but just keep an eye on their food. Ha! After saying that, one of the marmots jumped on one of the guys’ head. Kidding! But seriously, did I ever tell you about the marmot that tried to kill my daughter when she was a baby? A story for another time. (ok, it did not actually try to “kill” her, exactly).

Well, time to go back down the mountain. It was a long 6 miles back to the car. The steep part down to Lake Sylvia I found to be very hard on my knees, but after that it  was a nice gentle downhill. Except that I ran out of water three miles from the car. I had brought 3 liters, but it was all gone. I could have filled up in the creek in an emergency, but decided to just get back to the car as soon as possible, where I had plenty of water waiting for me. I was very tired when I got back to the car. Hopefully, I would sleep well that night, but it would be difficult with all the fireworks going off on our street. I still had to go to work the next day too, but it was an epic day in the Desolation Wilderness.

 

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This is my video for incredible West Cherry Creek Falls, in the Emigrant Wilderness, Stanislaus National Forest, California Waterfalls. A 3 day backpacking adventure, with my son Jadon. The West Cherry Creek Canyon ranks right up near to top of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. Two spectacular waterfalls, towering granite cliffs, magnificent river. The beauty was stunning, and I fell in love with this canyon. I’m not so sure Jadon felt the same.

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This is 40 ft. high Merced Peak Falls in Yosemite. It is quite lovely and fairly easy to get up close to it.

Now that it is summer and the mosquitoes have arrived, I am done with hiking. Or am I? I do not usually hike much in the summer because of the heat and the mosquitoes, both of which I hate absolutely. With the low snow pack this year, the waterfalls are not going to be flowing throughout the summer either (unlike the last two years), so what is the point in torturing myself? I don’t know, I am sure I will go on a hike or two, but I will not be backpacking again until September.

I thought I did really well this year with my backpacking trips. Much better than last year. I went on six backpacking trips this winter/spring, and five of them were successful (in terms of seeing waterfalls). That is definitely a huge accomplishment.

So see you all in the Fall. But seriously, I still have tons of photos to process from my last 3 trips. So even if I am not hiking much, you still have those to look forward to. Ha ha.

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This is my recent 2 day solo backpacking trip to Lake Lois, Desolation Wilderness, Eldorado National Forest, California, near Wrights Lake / Lake Tahoe. It was Memorial Day weekend. There was still 5 feet of snow at Lake Lois, it was fantastic, and I found a couple beautiful waterfalls as well. Desolation Wilderness is one of my favorite areas to hike and backpack.

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(Philippians 1:21)

I mentioned that I saw a number of waterfalls on the Merced River. Some of these are marked waterfalls. At least one of those marked waterfalls is not even 20 ft. high, and should not even be called a waterfall. There are others, however, that are not marked, and some of those are well over 20 ft. high. Nothing huge, but definitely waterfall worthy. Why are they not considered waterfalls by the National Park Service? Some of these unmarked falls are out of reach, some were not very photogenic, and some were in horrible harsh light so I did not take any photos. This one, though, I thought was a really good one, and I was able to get to it in the morning when the light was still good. It is about 30 ft. high, and is a powerful little thing. It was so misty at the base of the falls that it was practically impossible to take photos. Nonetheless, I did take a photo of it.

After photographing the falls, I ate my breakfast here. I did not doddle. I had a long hike ahead of me. It was going to be a 21+ mile hike back to the Happy Isles trailhead. It would be a very long day. I was going to die.

I am not positive but I do not think I’ve ever hiked 21 miles in a day before (though I’ve come close). I was certain, though, that I could hike that distance today because it was all downhill. No problem. It was not quite “all” downhill, however. There was one uphill section that I knew about beforehand and I was mentally prepared for it – about 100 ft. in elevation gain after passing through Echo Valley. However, there were a number of other “little” up hills that I definitely did not remember seeing on the way up. These ones killed me. I was not ready for them. They should not be there. It is supposed to be all downhill hiking. The two worst sections were just before the top of Nevada Falls, and then right at the end of the hike below Vernal Falls. I almost died. Literally.

I thought I made very good time to the top of Nevada Falls. After this point, the hike is excruciatingly slow going. There are two reasons: One, there are hundreds of people on the trail. There are many narrow spots where you must go in single file, so you need to wait for the people coming up the trail before you can proceed. Also, it is not always easy to pass slow people going down. You need to wait for a wide enough place, or hope they step aside so you can pass them. I always try to descend from Nevada Falls as fast as I can, even though I am very tired by this point. This brings us to the second reason: the terrain is very steep, rocky, and with many awful steps cut into the rock. It is awfully slow going down. It just takes a very long time.

I finally got back to the car beat tired. It was 3PM. Not too bad, overall, for a 21 mile hike. I started at 5:30AM. It took more than one full hour to exit Yosemite Valley. The traffic was totally ridiculous. They did something to the roads in the Valley, re-routing or re-arranging them. I swear they made things 1000 times worse than they were before. What genius decided this? It has never been so slow driving around Yosemite Valley.  Even last year, though it was horribly busy, it was not as bad as this year. It is just so stupid now. It does not make me want to ever go back to Yosemite (but of course, I will).

I finally got to Groveland and stopped at Pizza Factory as I always do after my Yosemite hikes. I was absolutely starving. Bless the Lord, they were not busy. I ate my fill of pizza and garlic bread, and then made the long drive back home. I may have almost died on the long hike back, but it was worth everything. It was a great few days in the Yosemite Wilderness.

 

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