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| Smiles jams across Upper Blue Lake |
The guiltiest type of hiking: a long, tired depressed day of hiking in wonderful, beautiful open terrain. The Mokulemne Wilderness is a fabulous place where we get to spend precious little time, yet I couldn't get out of park in the morning, and spent the day in a ponderous funk over thru hiking after the departure of our friends yesterday. I ended up getting nervous about trip finances, and Smiles wasn't feeling too chipper either. We laboriously walked flat across some lake basins early on, our usual poor morning condition made worse by the fact that we took our vitamins too late after eating and upsetting our stomachs. Yesterday I had planned on stopping to fish the lakes, but it appeared too late in the morning and too windy to fish, and I was more intent on walking. I began to regret buying the rod & reel in Mammoth, as the fishing prior to Mammoth appeared to be leagues better than the fishing since. The cost of gearing up multiplied my frustration, as did my realizing that I preferred hiking to fishing when the option to fish presented itself. Smiles and I had a small squabble on the climb up above the Blue Lakes, then spent lunch at some half-drained dammed lakes behind a windy ridge. Sounds great, right? Well, in retrospect, it sounds a lot like everyday life. Though we are fortunate to live our current portion of everyday life in some of the most beautiful terrain in the world, we occasionally get reminded of the "everyday" portion when finances or other unpleasant realities become involved. It is rather inconvenient, to say the least. I far prefer trail problems to everyday problems, because I have found that trail problems don't really interfere with my enjoyment of the terrain. After lunch turned out to be better than before, though slightly (and surprisingly) more difficult.
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| Smiles looking north towards Round Top and the Elephant's Back as we hiked across the windy ridge before lunch. |
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| Before the last "secret" climb of the day. Descending below Round Top before climbing back up the Elephant's Back. |
We climbed beneath Round Top, dropped down, then went up, over and down
the Elephant's Back to Carson Pass. Smiles suggested I fish Frog Lake to
cheer me up, but apparently I was still mopey. We saw Kirkwood for the
first time on trail - a sure sign that we were getting into very, very
familiar territory. I had been wondering for the last few days how it
would feel, after spending so much time in unfamiliar territory, to be
smack in my mountain backyard of Lake Tahoe, where I spend more time
annually than anywhere else outside of the Bay Area. We snacked at a
closed-up Carson area info booth with Little Roo and Sheddar (who
coincidentally happen to be connected to our buddy Under Construction,
we found out), then had an easy climb up northwest into the Upper
Truckee river valley. The best news of the day had been coming through
in piecemeal bits, and I finally was able to put it all together: it was
looking good for us to have a friends' place to stay in South Lake
Tahoe! Details were still developing, but FurrCracker had asked Smiles
on our 4th of July trip some days before whether we had a place to stay
in Tahoe, as his friend owned a house there and was looking for renters
at the moment. Smiles said we didn't have any plans, and didn't think
too much more. However, today I received a DeLorme InReach satellite
text from FurrCracker who said that the place was ours, and to expect an
email detailing the requirements! Definitely a game changer. Though we
may be lost (and losing our minds), we were not forgotten. This made the
climb out of Carson Pass the most memorable bit of the day, not to
mention we saw what looked like home in the Lake Tahoe basin.
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| Smiles descends towards camp as the sun starts to duck behind the ridge bounding the west side of the Upper Truckee River, heading towards the Lake of the Sky - Lake Tahoe. |
We found a
campsite in the Upper Truckee River drainage right by the sprawling
meadow. It was quite wide, beautiful and lush, and it also had a
thriving mosquito population. We camped on a high bench that overlooked
the meadow, east to west. Quite spectacular, and a pleasing end to an
emotionally difficult day.
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| Looking back at Red Lake Peak in the Upper Truckee River headwaters |
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