So Leaving Palisade Lakes was a mostly uneventful string of days leading from one beauitful place to the next,
Upper Basin, Lake Majorie, Pinchot Pass, Crater Mountain, Fin Dome, Arrowhead Lake, Rae Lakes etc.
Once again I tried to stop in and say hi to the Rae Lakes Ranger but no one was home. Oddly enough I ran into the Rae Lakes Ranger later that day on the high road above Onion Valley so we got to chat anyway.
Reaching the Onion Valley Trail head I got a site and David arrives ready or should I say not ready to join the hike for 9 days. A cold front of some kind was beginning to pass through and it was getting colder then it had been on the whole trip yet he had no jacket, no tent, no sun screen, no chapstick, one day short on food and had done nothing at all to prepare for this hike. He said "I am not prepared for cold weather". It's September and your not prepared for cold weather!? Now none of this was anything special but just David.
Starting out I tell him I will wait for him on the top of the pass and I had a nice time with tons of wonderful people as I wait 3 hours on top for him to get up there! Kearsarge Lakes that night had a peaceful sort of nature as a Pika and I watched the storm rolling in with fog coming off the lake due to the extreme cold. Snow was expected but never happened.
The next day I began to realise how much nicer it can be to hike alone as his pace was too slow for me and he stopped for breaks allot to smoke cigarettes and then I would see him flick the thing off into a creek!
While eating lunch a man in Bubbs Creek told us he was in the area looking for Yeti. Yes that's right a Yeti which he claimed he saw two different years in the area. I don't like to doubt people but he was the classic image of a guy that did too much LSD. I'm sure he saw something...
While climbing Forester Pass I passed by the trail crew coming back from work but none of them had any interest in talking at all, it was a 17 CCC + 3 Park Service crew which by far was the largest I had seen! Waiting only an hour and a half on top for David we begin our trek down to below Mt. Tyndall but as we moved cross country David catches up saying he does not want to climb it because his feet would be destroyed since they were already hurting him. I should have said he can wait at the bottom for me while I climb it but we just decide to head for Tyndall Creek for the night which put us one day ahead of schedule and made his trip 8 days instead.
Passing the
Big Horn Oasis as I call it we bail off and go cross country to Wallace Lake managing to follow the trail most of the way. If you stay sharp there is a trail you can follow all the way from Wallace Creek to Wallace Lake.
The trip for me was very easy but David's feet were killing him and he was moving very slowly. Reaching the Lake it offered very little for camping but was a nice isolated location to stay for two days. Looking up I saw Mt. Barnard and it was just calling my name and it looked easy to climb so I decided to go up it the next day alone as David certainly did not want to.
Now I hate to broadcast this over the net but it's the whole reason we came to this lake, Wallace Lake has fish, big fish! 20 inch Golden Trout as I had been told and we were here to put that to the test. So mid day using a lure I had not caught a single fish on I go to the outlet to try my luck and the second cast I catch a nice fat Rainbow Trout that was bigger than any fish I had caught in the Sierra so yes it is very good! David had the most
pathetic little pole he bought for 15 dollars but it managed to pull in fish nearly as big as itself lol. Even the
smallest ones you catch are the biggest ones you catch any where else and the meat is pink like Salmon which is better tasting then the standard white meat.
So after doing some
star photos that night I take off alone to climb Barnard and near the top I see 5
Big Horn Sheep about 50 feet
below the summit which is something I had never seen before. Talk about wishing I had a nice telephoto lens as my 70MM couldn't even come close!
So after conquering
Mt. Barnard and being one out of like 6 people to sign the register that year I head back down to catch more
fish for dinner.
Is that a camp fire in that picture? Yes it is, just ignore that!
David had decided to make a camp fire out of what few stumps of wood were laying around at 11,400 feet. I did not agree with this fire but also did not complain because it cooked the fish which was allot easier then a super hot hiking stove. At least he had his own permit so it was not my duty to police him. Or is it? I suppose that is a debate in it's own! =P
I'll add a video for fishing Wallace Lake when it is done uploading.
