8/16/14. 13 miles
It was cold last night camping so near the meadow at 8,800 feet. My hands burned with cold, I wore my wool hat and down jacket as we started hiking. I kept trying to put one hand then the other under my jacket to warm up my hands, it didn't work too well. We wound down beside the meadow & Fall Creek for 6 miles.
Then we stopped in the sun by Wilma Lake for a break and water. Next we climbed almost to 9,000 feet to Bond Pass and beyond. Peggy went before me so we hiked separately for awhile, it was a rugged 2.5 mile climb into another valley.
Granite steps uphill often were oversized and hard for me to get up.
One trunk hosted two Bristle Cone Pine trees that rose above me beside the trail.
Climbing up and up, a very rocky trail.
This type of uphill stepping stones was exhausting.
Looking down from the trail was just a spill of boulders.
At the top I met 3 hikers going northbound, we said a breathless hello and passed by one another. My trail began to descend for 2.5 miles and the views were spectacular! The trail down was steep and very rocky, really a hard trail to have to walk on with lots of loose rock that easily slid and shifted under foot. There was a river at the bottom where I met Peggy. We had a break together and decided to go to Rancheria Creek in Kerrick Canyon 2 miles away. The uphill section was 1 mile straight up, really a hard climb that took me an hour. When I stopped to catch my breath the views were astounding, I was up so high the peaks were all around me. The last mile was downhill to the creek. Peggy and I arrived exhausted and strung out. We found a camp site, set up and went our own way to do chores and try to relax a bit. I found a pool downstream to soak my feet in and wash up a little, anything to try to rejuvenate myself. Dinner was at 6:15 and we both felt better but by 7:30 we were zipped into our tents for the night. We were curious about Critter and Candice, they shouldn't have been far behind us.
(unbeknown to us, Candice actually did hike into the camp area after us but didn't cross the creek where we camped, she stayed on the other side. She thought she saw our tents but was too tired to come over the creek to investigate.)
8/17/14. 12.75 miles
It was another cold night, getting ready in the morning was hard and both of us were ready to hike to warm up. We began with 4.5 uphill miles into a lake basin. Peggy does best uphill so I didn't see her for awhile.
I met her at this lake where the trail passed. We prowled around a little wishing we had time to camp and enjoy it more.
We would be seeing this crag as a backdrop to Benson Lake later. The trail went around it dropping another lake basin.
A small lake lower down the mountain as we neared the crag and Benson Lake.
After the small lake we started descending, dropping below the crag on a trail that needed to be worked on, it was in pretty bad shape. We slipped and slid down the trail and as I got to the bottom I lost the trail. I saw Benson Lake through the trees so I knew what direction to take but I ended up following game trails then a horse trail and finally exiting the forest into a CCC/NFS camp doing trail work on both sides of Benson Pass. Asking directions I walked down the beach (granite ground fine like sand) until I found the place where the PCT came out of the forest to the beach. I hung up my orange wind shirt on a tree limb to flag Peggy my position. Ten minutes later Peggy came walking up.
This is the Riviera of the Sierras, Benson Lake. We rested in the shade, read books and had lunch. There was a constant breeze making waves that lapped the shore. It felt like the beach and we were the only ones there for about an hour. Ahhhh!
After 1.5 hours we knew we needed to get to work and put more miles on the day. Our destination was Smedberg Lake 3 miles up at 9,500 feet elevation.
We ended up hiking just below this peak and three quarters of the way around it. What a slog, it took hours on rough trail.
Closer still until I grew sick of seeing it!
It was 6:30 pm when we dropped into the basin for Smedberg Lake, the sun was getting low in the sky and there was so much rock around the lake it was hard to find a place to camp, keeping in mind the rules of Yosemite Park, 100 ft from both lake and trail, we searched and searched for campsites.
First views of Smedberg Lake.
Finally we each found our own sites. This was actually one of my favorites, a really scenic spot on a rock shelf above lake and trail. Peggy was on a level spot near the trail. By the time camp was set up, water filtered and boiled for dinner, I was eating it by my tent watching night fall at 8 pm. Tomorrow looks to be much the same as today. I feel like the trail is getting the best of me even though we have lowered our daily mileage. BUT... I love being up high and getting to see this wonderful landscape. So tomorrow I will put on my pack and get up to Benson Pass at 10,100 feet.
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