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| Hiking | 12.00 Miles |
1,250 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.00 Miles | | | |
| 1,250 ft AEG | | 18 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | Days 1&2 of a 5-day base camp and day-hiking trip in the Sierra Nevada, with 5 members of the LA Chapter of the Sierra Club's Mule Pack Section. We camped the night of August 1 at Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead Campground and presented ourselves, with duffles, at the Pack Station at 7:00 on August 2. The pack station has plenty of parking and you can leave your car there, when they are assisting your trip. We hiked about 7 miles with 1050' Elevation gain this first day. It was nice to be able to get several miles into the high country, and away from roads, carrying only a day pack and letting the mules do the hard work. Our original plan had been to camp near one of the South Fork Lakes, but our trip leader had pre-hiked that route over July 4th and found it too swampy, due to the heavy snowpack the Sierra had this past winter. So we headed up the main/north fork trail, which the pack station manager had told us was drier. The maps show a trail that heads NNW between Cottonwood Lakes 1&2, but we found that there is no trail on the ground there this season, and the ground got real swampy there. So we backtracked and followed a trail that goes north, just east of Lake 1 (which was marked with a sign that said simply "trail"). Then we made a left turn, hiked less than a quarter mile, and selected a campsite near a lake that has no name on the map. We dubbed it "Home Lake" for the duration of our stay. Had a great view of Mt. Langley to our right, and Cirque Peak to our left, from the kitchen area of our camp. It also provided us with a couple big trees to shade our food storage area, and easy access to an outlet stream for water. I had a bit of trouble finding a level spot for my tent, and ended up a ways up a short but steep hill east of the kitchen site. I didn't make many trips per day up & down that hill, but it turned out to be an excellent tent site.  All the streams up there are high this year.
On day 2 of the trip, we did a fairly leisurely hike to explore around Cottonwood Lakes 3, 4 and 5, continuing along the same trail we had camped near. Then from Lake 5 we went cross-country to Muir Lake, for some map & compass and route-finding practice. (That was August 3, and about 5 miles.) |
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"Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy . . ." -- John Denver  |
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