Moments in Dirt and Ink

Yosemite National Park Being near Glacier Point and having someone along who had never been to Yosemite, we had to take the little extra drive to the end of the road and have a look around. We started at a nearer lookout point before getting out to the main feature view point. It's not as jarring as looking up at 3000-5000 foot cliffs, but it's still an impressive way to look at the grand valley. There's some of the Yosemite Valley with the cliff of Half Dome standing over it. And over here, if you know where to look on a lower cliff facing the photographer, is Nevada Fall below a smaller dome. It was smoky, as we expect of an August day. Except, hold on! When I was very young, they had many smog days. When I was older, they had signs about how they used to have bad smog days and what was done to clean it up. As a teenager, I had a few backpacking trips in these Sierra Nevada mountains and not a single one of them was smoky even though they were in August. But no...

Shasta-Trinity National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Brown lines for day 3. Click for interactive map Seeing the Grand National Mine had been a thought for the previous day, but since we hadn't got to it, we decided to stop by on the way out. There was plenty of time. It did mean we wouldn't get to see what the lower trail was like, but sometimes you just have to make sacrifices. First, I took a little longer exploring the lake, this time looking for "better" water. Mist plays across the water once more. Watching the mists cross the lake. Watching the mists from another angle. There's a few well used camps along the west side of the lake with a couple well trod trails getting among them. Some were more elaborately situated than others.

Shasta-Trinity National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Blue lines for day 2. Click for interactive map With morning came potential to see the lake. I toured the camping area on the way to grab some water. I watched the mist flow across the lake from the mushy area of some swamp alders toward the distant cliffs. Eventually, I even managed to get some breakfast. One of the built camps with a concrete base for an ice can stove, now one side for a rock fire ring. Mist wafting delicately across Tangle Blue Lake from the swamp alders to the far side. Western yellow pond-lilies grow in a few spots at the edges. Then to decide what to do with the day. One wanted to stick around and fish and look after the tiny dog. One initially wanted to go to Little Marshy Lake, but since that is private property was persuaded to set the better Big Marshy Lake as a goal instead. And the rest were out for East Boulder Lake, but as near as I could remember anywhere f...

Shasta-Trinity National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Red line for day 1. Click for interactive map For this weekend, Daniil's plan was to head out to Tangle Blue Lake to camp two nights and then walk off to wherever, there's lots of trails around, for the middle day. Since Tangle Blue Lake got cut out of my lake visiting plans on the 5th day of a mighty loop from far west , this was my opportunity to see it after all. But I wasn't so sure about there being so many trail options. Also coming along were his wife, their tiny dog, and a new backpacker. We got started a smidge later than planned getting together gear for the new backpacker, but that's okay because people must be exposed to backpacking! We had almost 4 miles to get to the lake from the trailhead, and expected it to be dark before we got there. Already in shadow at the trailhead. The trailhead is a bulge in the road just before a section of private land, part of the checkerboard lands gi...

Shasta-Trinity National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 Blue line for day 4. Click for interactive map The lake didn't brighten up so much as the day before as weather was coming in. Bits of clouds passing over Alpine Lake. And just up the hill, there's a valley covered over by clouds to see, too. But this was all a preview of things to come and passed over. Still, it wasn't quite as hot as it had been, which was nice.

Shasta-Trinity National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 Green lines for day 3. Click for interactive map I decided that hiking back what had been given 3 days to hike in and then driving hours back to Eureka would not be wise, so getting to the lakes over the ridge would need to happen as a day hike. The morning sun comes to Alpine Lake. It takes a little time, but sun gets to our side of the lake, too. Daniil was wanting to have evening light and morning light by the lakes for photography, but relented easily to the idea that it would be a long return. It made us a lot lighter and a lot thinner as we trotted back down the trail again, now looking for signs of a sort of trail going up, possibly in a gully. Back past the pond. Happy to be climbing away from that smoke sitting in the valley. I found a fallen cairn in the middle of a slot of rock that clearly runs with water sometimes, although it was dry. How can you tel...

Shasta-Trinity National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 Orange line for day 2. Click for interactive map Unfortunately, the smoke had moved in overnight. I mean, I've seen worse, but I prefer a little less. We packed up hoping the afternoon would bring similarly clear skies as the last afternoon. What view can be seen from the somewhat clear areas near the ford is looking a bit murky with smoke. With a little difficulty finding where the ford is meant to be, we found something with a bit of trail on the far side. With a "Splish, splash!" we plunged in, boots and all, to cross the river. One spot did go over the knees. The ford across Stuart Fork Trinity River on the Alpine Lake Trail. And then we sogged our way back downstream. I think the ford used to be a little downhill of where it is now, but there's a bit of a climb on the west bank of the river there now. It's not the only spot that has been experiencing erosion. While...