The Many Moods of Long Lake (Sierra Nevada Mountains)

 Well, I survived. At the risk of sounding like a drama queen, there were times when I wondered. A quick recap: A four night/five day backpacking adventure at high elevation in the John Muir Wilderness area of the Sierra Nevadas. I got to check off two "bucket list" boxes: I've never hiked in the Sierras, and I've never done a multi-day backpack trip (other than my quick over-nighters in the desert). 

    Monday: 5 1/2 hour drive to the campground (Rock Creek Lake Campground), 10,000' elevation. 3.3 miles hiked (mostly flat) around the lake. Feelin' good so far.

    Tuesday: This was supposed to be 2-3 miles of easy hiking for me to get acclimated to the elevation. Turned out to be 6.8 miles to explore the Eastern Brook Lakes. Fortunately, my pack was light, and other than a headache and fatigue, I did OK. 

    Wednesday: This was my big challenge day. All hiking would be above 10,000' in elevation with a full pack. We depart Rock Creek Lake Campground to hike up to Long Lake, which would be our "base camp" for the rest of the week. I never weighed my pack, but with tent, sleeping bag, food, water, camera gear... I'm sure it was close to 40lbs, perhaps a little more. The hike up to Long Lake had some significant elevation gains with lots of big stone steps, and by the time we arrived, my legs felt like noodles and I was totally spent. 5.7 miles, unknown (but significant) elevation gain.

    Thursday: Supposed to be another light day with a short hike to Gem Lakes. By the time we added a hike over to "unnamed lake", it turned out to be 7.1 miles for the day. I was feeling really wiped out, and I told my hiking partners (Mitch and Doris) that I was so glad I made the decision to hike back to my car Friday morning. Mitch and Doris were staying one more night, doing a more challenging off trail hike on Friday, and hiking back to their cars on Saturday. I was spend. Done. Dead. I had given 120% effort. There is no possible way I could have done a challenging hike on Friday, so I made the right call.

    Friday: Solo hike back to my car at Mosquito Flats. My phone says 3.7 miles, but I don't think it's that far. I had a lot of time to think since I was hiking solo. My legs were so sore and tired that I was doing a lot of slipping and tripping. Have you ever had legs so tired that they refused to obey the commands from your brain? Very dangerous, and I was lucky I didn't fall. My hip joints were aching so each step was painful. I hyper-extended one knee. I found myself grimacing as I slowly made my way back to the car. It's a popular trail, so I saw lots of smiling people hiking up the trail for a day hike. Families, fisherman, young people, kids, dogs... everyone animated and happy to be out in one of the most beautiful areas of the country. I couldn't help wondering what they thought about the grumpy old man grimacing as he hiked slowly down the trail?

 

At home preparations: My pack (red) surrounded by tent, sleeping bag, and other gear. Camera gear and food still to come. How do I get it all in the pack? And more importantly, how do I carry such a heavy pack??
 

Stay Left.

 

I felt relieived to have made our destination goal for Wednesday. The above photo is one of my first views of Long Lake. Perhaps the prettiest lake I've ever seen. The trail continues on the left side of the lake (photo), but we choose to step across rocks and logs to get to the other side of the lake to find a nice, private camp site for the next few days. We'll follow that trail on the left up to Gem Lakes tomorrow. For today, we enjoy a beautiful sky with a lovely reflection off the water. 
 

Mitch's camp site. A nice filtered view of Long Lake, but away from the trail for lots of privacy. My tent site and Doris's tent site are not far away.

 

Wildflowers were a nice surprise.

 

5:30PM, and clouds moving in.

 

A pretty filtered view of Long Lake.

Mitch rehydrating some peach cobbler for desert. It was delicious!!

 

This was a surprise! We had rain and hail on the afternoon of day 1 at our base camp (Wednesday). It required a quick scramble to make sure none of our gear got wet.

 

Long Lake under a cloudy sky. Very moody!

 

The clouds were always changing and moving fast, which gave me the idea to try to capture a time lapse photo. I didn't have a tripod for my iPhone, so I just had to tilt it against a rock and hope I was getting both sky and lake in the frame. I let it do it's magic for about 1.5-2 hours, and it condensed it down to a 20 second video. I'm really happy with the results. It gives you a good feel for how dramatic the Sierra skies can be! 

 

The mood of the lake first thing in the morning was totally different, with just the surrounding peaks lit up by the sun (and reflected in the lake). The reflection was so strong and true it was almost disorienting!

 

Evidently I was so tired I couldn't open my eyes!

 

Friday morning, and it was time to say goodbye to Mitch and Doris at Long Lake and make my solo hike back to the car. I've already shared with you how tired I was. My leg muscles and joints were beyond tired, which makes for a challenging (and potentially dangerous) hike. Was I happy I did the hike? Absolutely!! The natural beauty of the area is unlike anything I've seen before, and I got a ton of great photos. It also gave me a wonderful goal to work towards. I'm extremely grateful to Mitch for pushing me to do something well outside of my comfort zone and for answering my never ending questions. Would I do it again? Hmmm... Probably not. I actually trained quite a bit for this hike, with every-other day hikes in the local hills for at least a month prior to the Sierra hike, along with a training hike at the top of the Palm Springs Tram. Even with all that, I was definitely the weak link and my hiking partners were always patiently waiting for me and keeping the hikes short and easy (by their standards!). All of the hikes were very much beginner-level hikes, and yet I still found them difficult. That should tell me something.

 

PS: When I got home Friday night, I got a text from Mitch that he was at a motel in Bishop. He said about the time I was hiking back to the car, he and Doris were hiking off-trail, climbing up a talus slope, and he stepped on a wobbly rock that sent him flying. The result was a long gash on his forearm, bruised shoulder, and a bruise on the head. Luckily no loss of consciousness. He was able to hike back to Long Lake with Doris, pack up all their gear, and hike back to the parking lot. Doris drove him to the ER in Bishop where they cleaned him up and taped his wounds, and he drove home Saturday morning. Thankfully he's fine, but it could have been so much worse! Mitch is an elite level hiker, I I'm sure this incident won't slow him down in the least!

 

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

Thanks for stopping by, 

and I'll be posting more from my Sierra wilderness backpacking adventure!