Horton: Basin Mountain
Inyo National Forest
Locate the trail head.
DAY 1 &nbps;| DAY 2 &nbps;| DAY 3
Day three. The moon got to just the right angle and woke me up again, but since the moon is lazy and takes a bit longer than a day to come around, it was almost an hour later when this occurred. Result, much better rested when I got up. I took a while to get up anyway. We were going to head toward Basin Mountain without any expectation to get up past the first lake because, as it turns out, I was the only one willing to bring crampons up. I lobbied for going up to Upper Horton instead. The valley looks a little rougher, but it was largely free of snow until the lake itself. I couldn't get any interest in that, though. My muscles were making complaints anyway, at least when not moving.
We circled the lake around to the outflow and back up crossing over numerous channels. The first was deepest, but had a rock dam on it preventing a lot of flow. Then we crossed a much wider channel full of water. On the far side of the outflow channels, we hiked upward along the boulder field of sliding rock. These rocks were much more stable than those from yesterday. We continued climbing and contouring around until coming to a stream. This we crossed and hiked upward along for a short way. Our route was already blocked by snow.
We turned back and followed the creek back down toward the lake. It came to a section with water channels going everywhere, then split around a patch of trees with more campsites below them. From here, we went back around the lake the way we'd come.
As I crossed the outflow again, I came to a large pool on the side we'd managed to miss before. I stayed closer to the edge of the lake this time and, after crossing a stack of logs with willows trying to push me down into the lake, I found myself on an a chunk of old concrete. It was a small dam on the lake. Looking down, I saw the other side of the rock dam below it.
We broke camp and headed out for lunch in Bishop. I stopped to have a look inside one of the buildings before leaving.
Then it's down, down, the long and gentle mining road to the car, then down the rough road to town.
Driving out, I kept spotting lone flowers that looked just like that very spiny Matilija poppy I found in Mono, but we didn't stop to check.
*photo album*
©2013 Valerie Norton
Posted 29 May 2013
Liked this? Interesting? Click the three bars at the top left for the menu to read more or subscribe!
Comments