First Backpack-Day 1

Post date: Jul 24, 2012 11:59:55 PM

On July 13, Britt, Penny, and I left home bound for the Bridgeport Ranger Station. With us, we brought extra clothing and enough food to last us through the next day's lunch, not to mention all the necessary gear. We had spent part of the last year gradually accumulating the necessary gear to do some backpacking. This included, but wasn't limited to, a new pack for Britt (I'll use the one we already have), backpacking tent, sleeping bags, pillows, water filter, backpacking stove & pots, and a bear canister. I had spoken with one of the Rangers earlier in the week about grabbing a walk-in permit for the Hoover Wilderness (they keep half of the available daily permits for walk-ins) and he thought that we should have no problem. Even with that in mind, we decided to start our overnighter on a Friday instead of a Saturday to increase our chances of getting a permit. When we arrived at the Bridgeport Ranger Station there were no other people looking to get a permit. Only 7 out of the 10 reserve-able permits had been taken for the Virginia Lakes Trailhead and no one had taken any of the walk-ins yet. Therefore, there were plenty of permits still left.For our first backpacking trip, we decided to take it fairly easy and keep the mileage decently low. However, we would have quite a bit of elevation change to cover. We decided to start from the Virginia Lakes Trailhead, cross over the pass, drop down to Summit Lake along the Yosemite border, and then continue down to East Lake to camp in the Green Creek drainage for our first day. For the second day, we planned to hike down from East Lake and out to the Green Creek Trailhead. Since we were starting and ending at different trailheads we brought two cars to shuttle us. Therefore, we drove out to the Green Creek Trailhead first and dropped off one of our cars and then headed to the Virginia Lakes Trailhead to start our overnighter. Because it takes a little over 2 hours to drive to Bridgeport, we didn't drop off our car until after 10am. I was surprised to find the Green Creek Trailhead almost full when we arrived, however this trailhead has double the number of permits than the Virginia Lakes Trailhead. I was a little worried that we would have company at East Lake at the end of the day.

We arrived at the Virginia Lakes Trailhead after 11am and were on the trail by ~11:30am. I got out ahead of Britt and Penny so that I could check out the little waterfall just above Big Virginia Lake. Very quickly the trail arrives at Blue Lake before climbing around it towards Cooney Lake. Between these lakes is an old miner's log cabin. At Cooney Lake, we continued along the trail to a junction with a side-trail leading to the northernmost Frog Lake. Almost four years ago we had followed this trail in autumn and were really impressed with the views of the surrounding peaks from these "lakes". Back then, we had climbed down the inlet to Cooney Lake and eaten a late lunch before continuing on. Also, back then we had a shelter dog named Natasha with us.At the side-trail junction we dropped our packs and headed back to get the same views. The lighting for pictures on this day was much better than before and the scenery took on a whole new look and was very pretty (top picture). Afterwards, we continued climbing up the trail, crossed the outlet to the largest Frog Lake and headed towards the Virginia Lakes Pass. About halfway up this climb we stopped for lunch and a breather just north of a shallow pond at the western end of the Virginia Lakes Basin. We were already feeling the weight of our packs, but were at ~10,700' elevation. It was only a little over 400' higher to the pass and then it would be almost completely downhill the rest of the way. Shortly after getting under way again, we passed a group of people that had hiked to the shallow pond below. It would be a little while before we saw any more people. When we crossed the 11,000' mark we stopped for a breather and enjoyed the view to the northeast. At the pass (~11,140') we reached the highest elevation we have ever been while hiking. Also, we were met with an amazing view just west of the pass (picture above). From a little ways off the trail, we looked over the Hoover Lakes and the northern end of East Lake to the north and Summit Lake with Camiaca Peak and Virginia Peak behind to the northwest. It may have been partly do to the altitude, but my breath was taken away momentarily, after which I couldn't help yelling out. Hearing my voice echo off the many surrounding peaks was pretty cool and I took a while to take in the setting. We stood for a little while looking around at the colorful peaks and listening to the wind before starting our descent. Moments like this are why I love hiking, especially in the Sierras.

As we made our way down the scree slopes, we were accompanied by the fantastic view of Summit Lake and the surrounding peaks. Also, surrounding the springs along the trail were numerous Columbine flowers covering every imaginable shade between the bright red of the Red Lantern Columbine to pure white. Just before reaching the junction with the trail to the Hoover Lakes and the rest of Green Creek Basin, is a great view overlooking the Hoover Lakes (picture at right). At the trail junction, we stayed left and descended before following the outlet to Summit Lake up to the eastern shore of the lake. We saw a few people below Summit Lake and had a short chat with a couple at Summit Lake before continuing on to the border of Yosemite National Park. We wouldn't see (we would hear a couple of kids at Gilman Lake) any other person for the rest of the day.Interestingly, water from Summit Lake has two options: (1) head underground and emerge from a spring to the west, flow into Return Creek, and eventually make it to the Pacific Ocean at San Francisco Bay via the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers or (2) flow east and exit Summit Lake to become part of the East Fork Green Creek and eventually end its journey in Walker Lake, NV in the Great Basin via Green Creek, East Walker River, and Walker River. We passed the border with Yosemite and walked a little ways to the west to get a view of Virginia Peak. Unfortunately, the lighting was not the best and the pictures didn't turn out that great. Also, because of the cloud cover, we couldn't see very far into the park. However, it was still pretty and maybe someday we'll hike down into Virginia Canyon. At the park border Britt located the small, inconspicuous metal marker just off of the trail. We took a few pictures of Penny laying next to it (dogs are not allowed on trails in Yosemite). After this, we headed back to the other side of the lake and back to the Hoover Lakes trail junction.As we walked down towards the Hoover Lakes we passed back under 10,000' and were starting to really feel our energy leave us. By the time we were getting close to Gilman Lake we were considering stopping a little early and camping at Gilman instead of East Lake. The couple we talked to at Summit Lake had said that Gilman Lake was really pretty and they seemed to like it more than East Lake. Therefore, Britt and Penny waited for me just west of Gilman Lake while I went ahead to check out East Lake. I wanted to see if the area I had scouted out on the eastern side of East Lake would be a good place to camp and if East Lake's setting was better than Gilman's. I passed by pretty Nutter Lake and then came around a corner where I could see East Lake Falls coming into the lake. After that, the expanse of the lake started to open up in front of me and I could see the towering peaks surrounding it. I could see the eastern shore leveling out slightly to the south of the area I scouted out. However, I didn't actually go all the way to where I thought we could camp. I had seen enough and I figured that we should be able to find a nice camping spot. I'm not sure what the couple from Summit Lake was talking about, because East Lake was much prettier, interesting, grand, and amazing than Gilman Lake. We were definitely going to set up camp at East Lake.When I got back to Britt and Penny, I quickly went down the hill to the northwestern shore of Gilman Lake to take a couple of pictures before we left. When we were close to where I thought good campsites would be, we found another place along our route that the USGS topo maps had the trail in a different place. Instead of passing west of the large pond off the eastern shore of East Lake, the trail passes on the eastern edge of this pond. We backtracked a little and walked west towards the lake. We found a nice, flat, and sheltered spot to put our tent that was ~250' from the shore (required to be at least 100' from the shore). We put up the tent quickly because it was getting late and we were hungry. There were a few mosquitoes, but nothing too annoying. There were a couple of birds who incessantly squawked whenever we were outside of our tent. Apparently they didn't approve of our campsite. However, they were interesting to watch.