Sunday, September 17, 2006

The Snow Lake Hike

(GPS: N38 06.010 W119 27.620)

This was a fun hike in August, 2006. A week earlier I intended to do this hike, but the problem was I spent too much time at Peeler Lake. I was well adjusted to the high altitudes a week later so I decided to do the hike again. I was on the trail around 4:30am and was remembering the hike I did a year to the day before to Matterhorn Peak a few miles away (that epic story for another day).

A hiker had tried to convince me to take a left at the junction side the week before. I had my goal of getting to Peeler so I had to ignore his advice that day, but realized what he was trying to say. This hike is a lot more interesting and it is BEAUTIFUL! After taking a left at the junction it does not take too long to reach Robinson Lakes.

These lakes are very green. The moss must make these lakes ultra green. They were not that big, but very nice to look at. These lakes dump in and join the Robinson Creek drainage that goes into Upper Twin Lake at Mono Village. I did some some small fish in them, but nothing really big. I was in the middle of the trail for both of these shots; the trail divides the two lakes.

After a while of more hiking I reached Crown Lake. This is the lake many camp at and reach from hikes from Virginia Lakes. Very BEAUTIFUL! While hugging the right side of this picture where the trail continues I heard a "bark". I thought there must be a dog out there. The problem is no dogs are allowed in Hoover Wilderness! It was either a human faking a bark or some other animal. I never found out. Finally, After about 4 1/2 hours I reached Snow Lake. It is about a 3,000 foot elevation hike. Lots of switchbacks! However, I never really felt that tired doing this hike. The conditions were cool and I encountered no humans at all. Only one deer on the way that did not want to get off the trail for me. I told him I would move around him, and I did. In the following picture I am shooting back to where I came from on the left side of the picture. The lake drains down below, but it is not a waterfall. There was a patch of snow at the end that I had to get off trail for, but no major snow. I would have been upset if I had not found a way to get past that snow. I was so close! The Sparkletts Water picture. I spent some time on the other side of the lake to the right. It is very marshy there. Unfortunately, I do not think pictures really do justice to the beauty of this lake and area. I was so at peace at this lake. I did have to deal with a lot of skeeters that wanted my blood, but one cannot escape them anywhere. The following picture is taken at the Yosemite border looking back at the lake. The lake is a little bigger than it looks in these pictures.
The following picture is shot looking into Yosemite. I crossed over for a few minutes and it does look like Yosemite. Yosemite does have a distinctive look to it if you have been there so it did look like what I know of as Yosemite.
This was a very fun hike. It was one of the hikes I can honestly say I felt so at peace and happy doing. I like hikes like this that are not impossible and too dangerous to do, but are uncommon areas for humans. I did see some humans that looking really tired on the way down near Crown Lake. Very strange because they seemed so out of their element. I started encountering more people as I got close to Barney. There are more funny things that happened, but this one of the two best scenic hikes I did this year.