 |
|
 |
 |
| Day 3 - Up & Down |
| We knew we had a steep, unsheltered ascent into the Kahweah Gap, so we rolled out of bed at first light. Best to do the worst before the sun was blazing on us, right? The rest of the campground was still sleeping, except for a group of 3 guys who were up even earlier than us. They started up the trail long before we did, and we never saw them again. Crossed the creek and promptly lost the trail - the ground was very rocky and the trail was difficult to see. After 15 minutes of fruitless scrambling around on rocks, I lost my temper and we found the trail. Switchbacks, switchbacks and more. Hamilton lake was beautiful from above, and we saw how deep the far end must be. A trail crew passed us easily, and the last member stopped to let us know that they would be blasting a boulder off of the trail, "right next to the tunnel." Well, we had no clue where the tunnel was but he said it would be at least an hour before they started blasting, and he promised they'd make sure we were in the clear. After eons, we reached the tunnel (blasted right into the rock above a gorge) and saw the remains of what looked like bridge supports clinging to the wall along the trail. The crew was on the other side, gathered around a large boulder that sat on the edge of the trail. They had drilled holes and placed dynamite inside of it. |
| Above: Precipice Lake. If you look along the ridge above it, you can see the small glacier whose runoff feeds the lake. This was the coldest lake I've ever put my feet in, and the sweetest water I've ever tasted. |
| Left: The edge of Precipice Lake, with the Valhalla ridge stretching out and downwards. I still can't believe that we made it up that far. The elevation was around 10,400 feet. The ground between the boulders is a marshy bog . |
| Precipice Lake from above. It was really beyond the shade of blue-green you see here. It was like a jewel. |
| They hurried us around the bend and told us not to stop until we reached the trail guard, past the danger area. The yellow blasting wire ran along the trail for a long distance and then we spotted the spool sitting just off the trail. On and on we walked, until finally we spotted a guy in a hard hat sitting on top of a boulder. We figured this was as good a place as any for a break, so we sat down and made small talk. A shout rang out across the valley, and the guard told us "they'll be blasting soon." We waited, watching the ridge we knew the boulder was behind, and after a while the call came out: "Fire in the hole!" We didn't need an explanantion for that, and soon a tremendous, ringing BOOM exploded through the air. It echoed down the valley, and we saw a white cloud of dust puff up into the air. "Hope the trail's still there," the guard said. He told us about a boulder they had blasted last year - it had been a successful blast, but a moment later another huge boulder dislodged and rolled into the exact spot as the previous one. He was also disappointed that nothing had rolled down into the lake. "I wanted a big splash," he said. We soon parted ways and continued our trek up..The sun was on us by then, but the day was still cool and windy. We stopped at a small lake to dip our heads, and the water was like ice. We knew we had only another 100 or so feet until we arrived at Precipice Lake, so we pressed onward. |
| Precipice Lake was a revelation. I've never seen anything like it. Barren, cold, hard rock all around - both in jubles on the ground around it, and rising up in sloped cliffs on the far side of it. Blue - deep, jeweled cobalt blue. Cold as ice, and with a tiny patch of boggy ground on the shore near the trail. A small glacier clung to the cliffs above, and the runoff fell down those slopes and into the lake in dozens of carved-out channels, whicjh glistened blackly against the grey stone. The only other people were an incredibly nice couple from New York, and we rhapsodized about Tang and the specatcular geography of the Western United States. |