WEEK 14

MAP

The weather first thing leaving the Hilgard Branch looked like it would rain but it never came. It was a uneventful stroll aside from stopping to urinate where I thought there was no one but a hundred yards ahead a naked man was standing so I went a bit further on. Once again back on the JMT super highway in Bear Creek until I reached the creek crossing and began climbing up for Orchid Lake. The route I followed up was a bit strange in the fact that the trees were marked with cairns like there once had been a trail when I don't believe there ever was. The hillside here offers wonderful views of Seven Gables and Recess Peak. The lake itself was small but big in charm. I spent the evening watching an Osprey fish the lake.

My route through this area was to hook around the ridge to Cirque Lake but before I had even lifted my head off the pillow I was like tonight is BBQ night at VVR and I am going down to that!! So I hooked over to get a view of Apollo Lake and dropped into Bear Creek which was no problem. Much further down creek I ran into a group of Rangers that I had talked to weeks before. I made them a bit jealous that I was headed to the BBQ.

After about 13 miles of grinding out I was walking the road where I had only gone about half a mile when one of the pack station folks told me to jump in the back. Unfortunately I think when I sat down in the back of his truck my pad was pushed off of my pack and was gone for good.

Being a day ahead of schedule I believe this was the first time I had taken a double layover day at VVR but loving it I later adapted it as the semi norm.

So after all was said done and eaten it was time to get back on trail. Before leaving someone had left a half torn sun visor on the ground in the parking lot which I took to have at least some insulation under me at night.

I set out past Graveyard Meadow and up to the Lowest of the Graveyard Lakes for the day. I think the two days of VVR bogged me down as I was rather tired by the time I got there. I located a decent camp but was some what startled at seeing a beach chair and a hammock hanging right next to the shore line. I thought maybe someone was around but they were not. Upon closer inspection under the beach chair I found that someone had dug a small trench and put 5 cans of food and a can of cheese wiz in there. I decided finders keepers since it was illegal anyway and ate a couple cans and took the cheese wiz with me.

Leaving out of here I hiked past the next lake up and to the largest of the Graveyard Lakes where what I labeled as Graveyard Pass lay ahead. Nothing more than a class 2 hop to the top and short small talus field to the bottom. Here a nice set of meadows and tarn lakes filled the area. Next stop Peter Pande Lake for lunch all this terrain was exceedingly easy as I past Anne Lake and began up towards at I now call Beetlebug Pass. I decided to avoid the low saddle on the ridge and continue up higher on nice slabs until you top out and can pass into easily into the head wall of Long Canyon on continuing slabs. I took down the primary drainage here for the lake until I could pass around a rib of rock sticking out on my left and make my way around the North shore to the outlet where good camping was. Over all I was very impressed by this lake. It reminded me heavily of Hamilton and I considered it to be on the list of places worth revisiting.

The end of the week was exceedingly easy as I left Long Canyon and just went to Iva Bell Hotsprings which I reached by lunch time and secured my favorite spot with the best pool right in my camp.