Good lunch spot.
To preface this post, let me apologize: this should have gone out on Thursday or so.
Anyway, Wednesday I went with my mentor up to Tenaya Lake to see if we could hike in to a meadow. Theoretically we were trying to reach the earliest melting meadow to see if we could come back soon to start work, but unfortunately we never made it. From Tenaya Lake, the meadows is about five miles in, but from the very beginning things didn't go smoothly.
First, Kaitlin (my mentor) had told me there was small stream crossing near the road, but I wasn't expecting the entire trail to be flooded. After lots of looking around, we eventually decided to ford the swollen stream, now about waist deep. Fortunately, after we crossed the first stream the trail seemed better. There was water everywhere and we had to hop between stepping stones or cross logjams several more times, but overall, the first part of the trail seemed pretty good. We stopped to have lunch on a pile of large boulders for a while where I took the picture above. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse when we reached the base of the mountain we had to climb to reach the meadow. 
It's always comforting when you can hear the water running under the snow.
As soon as we left flat ground, we encountered snow, and lots of it. In addition to being hard to walk on, the snow also covered the trail and we lost the blazes. So instead of switchbacking up the mountain, we climbed straight up it following a stream as best we could. When we finally reached the top of the ridge, there was a temporary reprieve from the snow, but before long we were back in it again. After four hours of trudging uphill through snow full of sun cups, which are the impressions you can see in the first picture, we still hadn't reached the meadow. Pretty tired and very frustrated, we turned around with just enough time to get back down the snow-covered slopes and back to the car before sunset.
And sure enough, just as the sun was setting we made it out to the parking lot. Honestly, that was the most exhausted I've been in a long time. The hike itself was only about eight miles (because we stopped short of the meadow), but the combination of the steep grade and the bumpy snow made for a grueling day. And if it was difficult going with daypacks, the hike would be impossible with full gear. Needless to say, we're waiting until next week (July 5) to start our meadow research.
The photos of the flooded stream and the snow-covered mountain are amazing! Hiking 8 miles uphill over snow sounds nearly impossible. Maybe you need snowshoes??
ReplyDeleteOh... I guess I should edit that. It was only 4 miles uphill, then 4 miles back down again, which was almost harder because we had to come back down the from the ridge through the snow. On the way down we found more blazes, so we followed the trail more closely, but it was still very difficult.
ReplyDeleteSo, are "blazes" those little piles of rocks that people put on trails? And, BTW, I *love* the moonbow pictures!
ReplyDeleteActually, the blazes are diagonal gashes that are cut into the bark so you can find the trail. In theory you should be able to see the next blaze from the previous one, but that was not the case on the way up.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like the moonbow pics. It was pretty cool.