In October Willow came to visit for a few days. This was a special treat and I had grand plans for hiking, peak bagging, and bouldering. Although the itinerary was not completed, a good time was had by all.
I picked her up Sat evening in Reno and we stopped to camp on the way back to Bishop. The next morning we continued back and spent a bit too much time sorting and packing gear. Then we went to get the backcountry permit - oops can't do that, the government was shut down - and on to the Pine Creek trailhead. I don't think we actually started hiking 'til around 2 pm.
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It was a beautiful day with lots of fall color down low and as we got higher the low light really accented the nice glacial polish. Pine Lake was pretty still so I had to stop for some reflection pics. It was starting to get a bit chilly and dark as we passed Honeymoon Lake so soon after that we set up camp on a nice bench. Evidently I hadn't used this tent (my winter one) for a while and I had moved the stakes to a different tent - oops. Luckily it is mostly free standing and there were plenty of rocks to hold the vestibules out. For dinner we had some reconstituted lentils I had dried the week before. It was around the time of the new moon so the stars were most excellent - but it was also cold, so we escaped to the relative warmth of the tent.
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The next morning we got up early for the bit of color in the sunrise. It was a little ominous looking and I feared the weather was coming in earlier than forecast but we only got a few flakes of snow and it was mostly sunny. Breakfast (a proper ratio of fruit and nuts to oatmeal) and packing up the wettish tent took a while but soon we were warmed with some uphill hiking up through the well named Granite Park. Some of the smaller pools were completely iced over but the larger lakes were clear. We were hiking along at a decent pace but it still seemed to take a long time to get to Italy Pass.
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From Italy Pass we left the trail and cut southish across the talus and a small pass and down to White Bear Lake. We left most of our gear there and headed towards the still distressingly distant 7 Gables mountain. We passed a number of scenic lakes that no doubt had some sort of bear themed name and then followed a delightful little canyon for a ways. Eventually we crossed a stream and were able to head up towards the peak. The last part of the ascent to the col north of the peak looked pretty impossible from a distance but as we got closer it looked more doable and by the time we had ascended a heap of slab and talus it was a pretty mellow scree slog. Then there was a bunch of talus and a tiny bit of 3rd class scrambling up to the summit. I was pretty tired by this point and Willow admitted she was tired too although you wouldn't know it by her pace or smile. We took a few pics, but I was too tired to go back and forth with the camera to get a proper pic on the point of the summit that poked out over the void on the E face.
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The descent was pretty straightforward and although it was tiring it went a lot faster than the ascent. From the summit it looked like heading up to "V" lake and then cutting over to our camp would be best but as we descended that looked like a lot of unnecessary up so we chose to take a route to the south of the canyon we came down. Willow had to stop shortly after we crossed the stream to see if she was going to puke or not - not. Evidently the altitude and exercise could effect her after all. I think she might have done this just to make me feel better about being tired though.
As we headed up the partly treed cracks and gullies the sun set. It took a while before we felt the need to resort to headlamps. This was after we came over the top of the rocks and ran into a cliff on the shore to a lake. Luckily we only had to detour about 50 feet to keep going. I was pretty sure I recognized the next lake and from there I managed to navigate us almost straight to our stuff, although there was some doubt as the slope seemed to take much much longer in the dark. We were both pretty excited to get to our stuff though. Willow watched dinner while I set up the tent. After a dinner of beans and chips we briefly enjoyed the stars and I took a few pics of the tent while Willow illuminated it. I was trying to balance the light of the stars and the tent - it took a pretty dim tent. We were at a higher elevation and it was colder this night. Luckily there wasn't much wind.
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Once again we got up early for the sunrise. We didn't have a good view east, but the view west towards 7 Gables was quite nice. Throw in a still mountain lake and some cool wispy clouds, and I was kept busy for a bit. Once again breakfast of as much nuts and fruit as oatmeal and packing up was not a rapid affair especially since we walked up the lake to eat breakfast in the sun.
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When we were all loaded up we headed back up over the little pass and on around a talus bowl and up to Italy Pass. There we stashed most of our gear and scrambled (class 2 and a bit of 3) up Mount Julius Caesar. It was quite pleasant on the summit so we spent some time there taking pics and enjoying the view as well as talking to a couple that came up later.
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Back at the pass we loaded up and headed down the trail. It was a long and uneventful hike back to the trailhead. We got there just about dark - close enough that we didn't bother pulling out the headlamps, although I probably would have a little earlier had we not been almost back.
Back home we had some pretty sorry attempts at bathing - one of these days I'll have hot water. Once the shivering was over at least we were clean. More beans and chips re-fortified us. That night it clouded over and looked pretty threatening. We were both glad to be out of the mountains as it was cold and snowing up there for sure.
Wednesday I had planned to go bouldering, but when it started raining that plan was squashed. Instead we did a heap of acro yoga - or at least attempted to.
Thursday was bright and sunny and there was a lot of snow above about 6,000 feet. I was doubtful of my peak bagging plans, but we decided to head up to South Lake to see what we could do. The yellow aspens and white snow made for some stunning contrast and we passed a number of photographers on the way up. The road was getting snowy and a little slippery when we came upon a snow plow backing down the road. It seemed wise for us to back down too, and we pulled off into a parking area. From there we walked nearly a mile up to the trailhead and headed up the trail. We were the first people since the snow so we got to break trail. It was about 6 inches to a foot deep in most places. I should have brought better boots and gaiters, but I was just wearing my approach shoes and pants in solidarity with Willow. We took the turn off towards Louise Lakes, and then when we hit a pretty trampled deer trail we followed that south towards Chocolate Peak. I was pretty doubtful of summiting Cloudripper with these conditions and our gear and so on, but Willow wanted to give it a go. I managed to convince her to head up over Chocolate Peak on the way figuring at least we would summit something. When we were most of the way up this peak we saw a large herd of deer passing below us on the trail we had followed for a ways. We watched them for a while during a food break.
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The views from Chocolate Peak were quite nice. I propped the camera on some rocks and we tried to get some standing acro shots. Mostly this was a failure except for 2 high (standing on shoulders). Then we headed down the other side towards Cloudripper. A little bit past the saddle between the peaks we decided that Cloudripper wasn't happening this day and started a long and laborious descent through snow covered talus and past a number of lakes before eventually finding the trail we had come up. This was in the lee of the mountain and the snow was much deeper. In addition it was in the shade and getting colder.
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The main South Lake trail had seen a lot of traffic since we left it in the morning and was easy to follow back to the trailhead. It was fully dark before we got back down to the truck from there and it took a little bit of coaxing to get it back onto the now dry pavement. we cranked the heat on the way down and were warmed back up by the end of the drive. We had more beans and chips with avocado for dinner and Willow packed most of her stuff plus an intense round of YogaSlacker conditioning.
The next morning we got up too early and loaded up the truck and headed back to the Reno airport. We packed a lot of fun into 5 days, but more would have been nice.
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