Trip Summary (6/28/2005-7/2/2005): This trip started off pretty rough, but I
think turned out pretty good. We chose to hike out of Courtright Reservoir
instead of what is probably the main trailhead for a couple reasons. The main
reason was because when we were up there a few days earlier, we were stopped
along the road by a fallen tree about 2 miles from the trailhead. The other
reason was we found out it would actually be shorter to hike from Courtright
to Cliff Lake instead of the "main" trailhead. So we went up to Courtright on
Tuesday morning and got started hiking at a reasonable time. From looking at
the maps, it was supposed to be a fairly straight shot from the trailhead to
the lake and not be too steep. So if we lost the trail, we figured we could
head straight there, man were we wrong. Almost immediately we lost the trail
so we just headed in the direction toward Cliff Lake. We probably were going
the right direction most of the time, but we were also trying to follow the
contours so we wouldn't lose too much elevation. Along the way we were looking
for the trail. We found some trails, but we knew they weren't the right one.
We continued going over ridge after ridge for several hours and then came to a
big creek. There was supposed to be a fairly big creek coming out of Cliff
Lake, so we decided to follow it upstream, even though it seemed to be coming
from too far south. We finally came to a lake and were so excited to get to
it. Right away I had doubts about it being Cliff Lake. It did basically have a
cliff by it, but it just didn't look quite like the pictures I had seen. We
were supposed to meet Richie's friend, Conor, up at Cliff Lake and we were
being optimistic and started looking for him. We soon added everything up and
realized this wasn't Cliff Lake and were very disappointed. We were too tired
to continue, so we stopped and set up camp for the night. We figured out it
was probably one of the Nelson Lakes and even though it was a really nice
lake, we were too disappointed to enjoy it. I was somewhat surprised to still
see snow on the lake. The next morning we packed up and headed out around
10:30. We figured we
should just go straight north towards Dogtooth Peak. It
wasn't very easy because there was still a lot of snow in some spots and it
was pretty steep. But we managed to go north. We eventually got above the
trees and could see some views of Courtright Reservoir,
LeConte Divide, and several other things in the area. Eventually we managed to
get to another big creek and we knew that this one must come out of Cliff
Lake. We stayed up high and didn't cross it yet and finally saw Cliff Lake (it
still had some snow on it too). This time we knew that was it. We crossed the
stream and headed around the lake looking for Conor. We found him without any
problem and began looking for a campsite. We found one and set up camp and
just stayed at the lake for the rest of the day. I took a nap and took a few
pictures of the afternoon sun on the lake. Richie was crazy and went in the
water that must have been slightly above freezing. The next morning we ate
breakfast and headed up to the ridge toward the Three Sisters. We took a
little break at
a nice little pond at the base of the highest peak and then headed up the
steep slope. We made our way up by climbing up some rocks and crossing snow
packs. Conor brought his dog, Nick, and they had to turn back because Nick was
getting too tired. I was getting pretty exhausted as well. We eventually got
to the top and had a great view all around us. We could see a lot of things in
the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness such as Black Peak, Rock Meadow, Red Mountain, and
several of the lakes. We also saw Kaiser Ridge and Mt Ritter and Banner Peak
as well as Courtright and the LeConte Divide and so many other things. We
stayed at the top for awhile admiring the view, taking pictures and resting
and then headed down. We decided not to go to the other two peaks. We met back
up with Conor at the pond at the base of the peak and decided to
check
out Island Lake. So we headed that direction, falling through the snow along
the way. We came to the snow-covered Island Lake, stopped briefly and then
continued on back to camp. We slowly made our way and came to Rock Lake and
saw that we had to go around the long way to get past it. We hiked around it
and came to the trail in a few places but lost it again. On our way around we
heard a thundering noise (we heard it several times and were curious as to
what it was) and then I looked over and saw an avalanche across the lake. We
were on the other side of the lake so it was no danger to us. We headed on
over the ridge and finally got to camp. I was pretty tired after that hike. So
we stayed at Cliff Lake for the rest of the day again, doing basically what we
did the day before. We had a nice campfire, a good dinner,
and went to bed. The next day we headed toward Dogtooth Peak. The hike was
pretty easy and didn't take too long. When we got there, we tried climbing the
peak to the south, but we couldn't find a good way up. So then we went around
the peak to the north and found a fairly easy way up. We found an interesting
little flat area up there with a few "spires" sticking up around it. There was
also quite a bit of quartz in that location. We tried climbing up the tallest
spire, but we just could not safely make it to the top. So we took some
pictures from where we got to and then headed back down. We made it back to
camp pretty fast again and enjoyed the rest of the day back there. I wanted to
jump in the lake at least once while we were there. So we all jumped in and
very quickly got it. That water had to be the coldest water I had ever swam
in! After that it was just a typical day at camp. Dinner for me was BBQ beef
with mashed potatoes. It sounded good and smelled good, but now I wish I
didn't get. The potatoes were too plain and the BBQ beef (if there was any
beef)
was too strong and not the best flavor. We had another nice fire and
then went to bed. The next morning we got up and started packing our things
and then left camp. When we stopped to take a picture, we saw another tent
there. This was the first sign of people we had seen. We saw almost no other
footprints and no other camps. This time we found the trail and easily
followed it all the way down. We pasted quite a few hikers who were going up.
Close to the parking lot we stopped to talk with a ranger who was doing some
clean up work along the trail. She said that after they were done there,
they'd head to the other trailhead and do some work there. So hopefully they
removed that log then. When we came to the parking lot, I was surprised by how
many cars were there. When we started off, it was just our two cars. Now there
were about 20 or 30 cars there. However it was Fourth of July weekend and
driving out we saw the campgrounds along the lake were packed. We drove down
and had a good lunch at Shaver Pizza and then headed on home.
