Sunday Sierrablogging

This lake wwas one of the reasons I came here, and I only ever got just this glimpse of it. I saw them on the topo, five big lakes in the canyon bottom and naked granite walls looming above, and I thought I have to go there. But people warned me about the brush, and they weren't kidding. It took us three hours to ravel the mile before this, three hours of dead ends and backtracking and climbing to avoid cliffs (then dropping to avoid more cliffs) and above all bulling our way through endless manzanita.

And it got worse from here. The folks we met in the valley below told us stay high, above the forest. Instead we saw what looked like a clear path through the flats. So we wound up in the Fern Jungle, thrashing through seven-foot ferns with no sight line and only the vaguest idea of direction guiding us. And from there, the Alder Swamp, dank and spooky, fighting branch and root and trunk for every foot of progress, progress halted whenever I bark my shin on a hidden branch and pitch headlong into the wet ground, my backpack lending momentum to my hapless trajectory. It was the toughest sustained stretch I've ever run into.

But it was worth it. The canyon is a lost world, and the pain involved in getting there is outweighed by the thrill of discovery.