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NEXT: Page 13 Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest
2017 Trip Chronicles: Contents
Styx Pass Backpack 6/13
Styx Pass Backpack 6/14
Styx Pass Backpack 6/15
Styx Pass Backpack 6/16
Styx Pass Backpack 6/17
Styx Pass Backpack 6/18
Styx Pass Backpack 6/19
After my morning down in Monterey County shores, the weather along our coastline continued to be windy and/or foggy, which frustrated my desire to visit areas along the Sonoma coast. At the same time, I decided not to do a short 3-day backpacking trip to Falls Creek above Wapama Falls that I had offered on the web to take others with me on, and instead concentrate on the more important backpacking trip it was supposed to prepare my body for. For about a decade, I'd been trying to fit in an early-season backpack to the Styx Pass zone, including Cherry Creek and nearby Yosemite National Park lakes of upper Bartlette Creek. However, I wanted Cherry Creek to have high flows in order to capture the most impressive whitewater, and of late, the 4-year drought made that inadequate.
Well, 2017 fit that qualification and more. Unfortunately, the heavy winter rains had also damaged roads to the trailhead that had Stanislaus National Forest gate access at the west side of Cherry Valley Lake reservoir dam. Doing so meant an extra hike of 4.5 miles and 1200 feet of uphill just to reach the usual Shingle Springs Trailhead. From there, Shingle Springs was already too long for a one-day effort of 9.8 miles and 2300 feet of vertical. But from the dam, it meant 14.3 miles and 3500 feet, or a difficult effort in 2 days for this person carrying my heavy load.
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(image at page right) enlarged vertical slice view QY09272-09284-1x4v Cherry Creek canyon Yellowhammer Lake stream cascading down 400 feet.
With the extra distance certain to discourage other groups from backpacking in the zone, picking up a walk-up wilderness permit would not be an issue. In the last decade, the kayaking community had proclaimed Cherry Creek to a similar world-class status that rock wall climbers have for Yosemite Valley, though the creek section they enjoy most starts a mile below where I wanted to work. My suspicion was that the road issues were beyond the Lake Eleanor Trailhead that is 3 miles from the dam, and later during my trip, that proved to be true. Forest Service personnel, in fact, were driving all the way to Shingle Springs, as a trail maintenance crew had their trucks and camp there.
Thus, SNF could have gated the road at the Eleanor Trailhead; however, I suspected the real reason for gating the road way back at the dam was to prevent kayakers from smashing their bodies up in the high flows. A community with not a few unfamiliar with wilderness policy, young, overly excitable extreme sport enthusiasts, the National Forest has been working with to accommodate. Accordingly, post-trip, expect they will move the road gate up to the Eleanor parking after the flows lower enough.
By the second week of June, an especially cold and snowy front at a level that only visits about twice a decade was bearing down on California, with long-range forecasts indicating an extended period of warm weather upon exit. Thus, I prepared to start my trip as that storm was exiting. Given the extra effort, I had to add a couple more days to what I expected would have been a 6-day backpack. Depending on how I would cope with the strenuous effort, I planned out several scenarios of where I would camp to reach and return from the target zone. I'd also gleaned some snow coverage information courtesy of MODIS satellite images SNF had linked on their site that showed the zone I expected to visit was already snow-free by early June. However, that turned out to be faulty information, as their algorithm for discerning snow coverage is apparently not really ready for public use. The storm delivered an inch or two of snow down below 6k as far south as Yosemite, though any accumulation was sure to melt within hours due to warm ground temperatures.
Online topo of Kibbie Ridge: mapper.acme Kibbie Ridge
Tuesday mid-morning June 13, 2017 I left the SF Bay Area, driving the familiar route east on SR120, reaching the Groveland District Ranger Station late morning, where I quickly left, permit in hand. By a bit after 1pm with mostly sunny skies, a minor breeze, and temperatures in the mid-70Fs, had parked in the shade near the trailhead where 4 other vehicles were parked and was heading down the road that crosses the dam. As I walked across the half-mile-long dam at 4700 feet elevation, a dump truck full of boulders passed, obviously engaged in repairing the eroded road damage.
At the east end of the dam at 7/10 mile, I stopped to sit on a boulder while another FS truck with someone inside was parked 50 feet away. My carrying weight was a bit over 60 pounds, including 16 pounds of camera gear and 9 pounds of food in a Garcia canister. Looked at the occupant, smiling and wondering how far he could possibly drive me up the damaged road. I soon found the topo map trail did not reflect the actual trails along the reservoir. After a couple of sweaty hours, I had reached the gravel road and Eleanor parking at 3 miles and 5200 feet. A few tiny mosquitoes had buzzed me between the reservoir edge and up along the trail that is near a seep stream. At this point, I knew I would go beyond my minimal expectation point of 4 miles and likely beyond Shingle Springs, then up to near the Kibbie Ridge / Kibbie Lake trail junction at 6.5 miles. One significant advantage with an early summer route up Kibbie Ridge is that there are several small ephemeral streamlets. By mid-summer, the ridge trail can be dangerously dry for long distances.
I began the climb up the Kibbie Ridge Trail, stopping frequently on every sitable log and boulder. At 5400, I stopped awhile where 3 moms and their daughters, who tried to reach Lake Eleanor Reservoir sans adequate map, had set up camp trailside after obviously taking the wrong trail. They took photos of my maps with a smartphone, and I hoped they reached either Kibbie or Eleanor the following day. It was about 6:30pm when I reached Shingle Springs, where I did a torso dunk in the cool pool at the trail crossing. A FS work crew set up at the nearby Shingle Springs parking lot came by, and we chatted briefly as I learned about the true nature of the damaged gravel road. An hour later, I reached the bench on Kibbie Ridge at 6400 along its small stream where, exhausted, foot sore, in semi-delirium, I dropped my heavy load, made camp, cooked a Mountain House Lasagna 2-servings dinner, and immediately retired into my BA UL1 tent.
After a pleasant night of recovery, I was up at sunrise Wednesday, June 14, 2017, packed up, and soon wandering up slabs and through brush looking for the trail. Well, except for having to re-inflate my leaky Thermarest NeoAir mattress every time I woke up during the night, haha. A week before the trip, I had given up trying to repair the dozens of tiny holes in the 2011 NeoAir I bought and ordered a newer Venture model that had not yet arrived. Over the last couple of decades, at least 3 fires have burned much of Kibbie Ridge, including the monstrous 2014 Rim Fire. Accordingly, what had been a heavy, tall forest decades ago when I hiked this same trail was now a very different landscape. After such fires, there are always many burned, dead trees that, over a period of winter storm winds, topple, and that causes considerable trail blockage that people then have to climb over or go around. Additionally, burned tree debris, such as bark and branches, tends to fall from still-standing dead trees, making walking uneven and thus awkward. Also, many small trees from 1 to 15 feet tall are born in the rich, sooty soils, densely growing in patches, making trail hiking unpleasant and off-trail hiking awkward.
Two miles into the trail, I misread my trail position on the topo map where the disappearing trail routed through granite slabs in nearly flat topography with view-blocking tall trees, and ended up east of where I should have been, thrashing around for an hour in a nightmare of marsh, dense willow, whitethorn ceanothus, bog blueberry, and fallen logs. By the time I realized I was not where I thought I was, it was too late to backtrack. Before continuing, to make certain I did not compound route issues, I briefly turned on my cell phone and got a Trimble Navigator GPS position fix verifying my actual position. To get back on route to the trail required an unpleasant, sweaty effort thrashing through more of the same and then bushwhacking up through whitethorn where I toppled over at one point, impaling a few thorns into my soft hide that later required tweezer work. By the time I was back on the trail at this day's 3-mile point, it was obvious I was much too exhausted to have a hope of reaching Styx Pass. Thus, I spent an hour taking a longer break, eating some food, and napping. Upon continuing, I found my body not as weary as I thought, so Styx Pass was again a maybe.
At my 5-mile point, I reached a large frog pond at 7260 feet, where I would stop for 90 minutes before tackling the final 650 feet and 3 miles. Took a dip in the shallow pond that had an unpleasantly soft bottom as I sank in mud nearly a half foot down. Then, after some more snack food, I napped again. Continuing on, the first trailside snow appeared at 7400 feet. I reached soggy, marshy Sachse Springs at 7 miles and 7800 feet after 6pm. Much of the landscape was now covered in patchy snow, as much as 3 feet deep. I realized the MODIS satellite images had apparently been misleading. Keeping on the snow-buried trail was futile, so instead I was guided by where the route with melted water everywhere was least unpleasant. Eventually reached the final ridge at 7900 feet that then, beyond blocking trees, led down across sparse forest and granite joint cracks and slabs to Styx Pass. My actual destination had been the no-name lake basin west of Mercur Peak, aka lake 7777. (see topo link above) Unfortunately, there was a whole lot more snow everywhere, and I was dead weary, stopping every short while. So I was content just to immediately find a reasonable granite slab zone free of snow to tent on.
Coming out of the forest on the ridge, I was happy to find the south-facing rib west of Mercur 90% snow-free and thereupon found a nice spot to camp on a gruss flat beside Sierra juniper trees at 7835 feet, about 1/3 mile west of the rib saddle of similar elevation one crosses to reach the lake 7777 basin. For the second straight evening, I made camp, cooked a dinner, and in a very weary state went right into my tent to recover over the night.
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Waking Thursday morning, June 15, 2017, I was glad the strenuous effort was now all behind me. My body, after another night of recovery, felt surprisingly capable for this senior citizen. In the past, there have been first-of-the-season backpacking trips where I've awoken to muscle and joint soreness from not being in adequate shape, but such was not the case this year, as I've been quite active even if not exercising daily. Skies were sunny with some high, thin clouds and a chilly sunrise temperature in the mid 30Fs I expected to soon warm up, given the storm of 2 days before was now probably exiting the Rockies and into the Great Plains. Keen to make sense out of what the zone offered before packing up and heading off somewhere, I made some hot chocolate and was soon out with my camera gear on a route across the granite slab landscape looking for aesthetic junipers. My first subject was the fine old Sierra juniper, Juniperus grandis, in image above.
I wandered past several other nice yet not worth stopping to work junipers, reaching the rib saddle, then climbed up on the west slopes of Mercur Peak for a better overall view. Lake 7777 basin, per the image above, was 90% snow-covered, with the lake showing just a small spot of open water. An area the MODIS satellite showed was free of all snow! Was glad I had not packed up and bothered to try and hike there. At this early time of day, snowfields were still rather firm, causing slippery footing. In the distance, east-southeast, I could see way too much snow in the Boundary Lake zone, so my plans for that area were also not going to happen. I wondered how much snow there was on the east side of Mercur Pass at 7650 feet, but that knowledge would need to wait till the afternoon. Instead, decided on hiking down, then searching for a pleasant place to camp west of that pass on the warm south-facing slabs. Along the way, I worked a beautiful Jeffrey pine I could see needed to be returned to for a dusk earth shadow up in sky shot. Found just the camp spot on a narrow bench with flat tenting, afternoon shade, and ready water draining down across warm slabs including much glacial polish.
Unlike the traditional mindset of backcountry users who site in shady forest with an accessible supply of nearby firewood, generally I have a fondness for open glaciated granite slab landscapes because I rarely make campfires, there are fewer mosquitoes, and I like the clean rock with small flats of granite sands between bedrock.
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Down below in a shady, dense lodgepole pine grove were piles of melting snow covered darkly with much pine needle and branch debris and a nearly melted-out frog pond at 7625 feet. Since the air about the pond was dead calm, I went down to the pond taking a set of images for the modest reflection 4 wide stitch photo above. Water draining from this whole zone southwest of Mercur Peak drained into this pond and then south down to Many Island Lake and not across Mercur Pass. I could readily imagine that once the piles of snow melted, this dim lodgepole pine area would become a whining ground zero mosquito hell. I had not seen a single mosquito since on the trail Tuesday halfway up Kibbie Ridge. So indeed, as hoped, the cold snowstorm had done a terrific job killing any early snow mosquitoes above about 6.5k; thus, I would be able to enjoy this trip without bothering to apply DEET, covering up my skin with clothing, or keeping my tent mosquito net door closed at night. A bonus was that there were no reasons to expect any bears this deep into still-melting snow zones, as summer green vegetation was barely out of the ground, thus little to eat. Without spending more time hunting images, I returned the 3/4 mile up to my camp, packed up gear, returned to this new spot, then set up a very nice camp.
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Though it was late morning, I had a worthwhile task challenge. I wanted some distant shots of Many Island Lake at 7323 feet on a bench below this pass basin. To get there, I would need to pass beyond my pond and then climb up through areas of now-softened snow between rocky outcrops. That would provide some learning challenge walking on sloping areas of snow. In little time, I was out to an overlook by 11:30am, then worked the above 5 wide frame that shows plenty of snow on the mostly north-facing rib just east of the lake while the more level basin of the lake proper below was nearly snow-free.
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Wanting a telephoto stitch of just the main lake area with many of its islands, I pulled out the Sony SEL55210 zoom, set it to 153mm, and took this next image above. Gee, such fine places to camp later summer when water had warmed up and spend a couple days swimming and lounging about on granite islands. But not this trip, nope, I'd already decided how this trip would now play out. I would spend two days on Cherry Creek below Lord Meadow and then on day 6 hike out halfway down Kibbie Ridge where I could then reach the dam and car on day 7, with a spare day to use if somebody's part became sore.
Back at my camp per image above, cooked lunch, Mountain House Beef Stroganoff with Noodles, 2-serving size, then later lounged afterward for an hour, quietly attacking my food bag in a cool spot between a rock wall and sun-shading lodgepole. About 2pm found a small tub-sized pool about a foot deep in a joint crack where snowmelt flowing over the south-facing glaciated slopes warmed the water up to about 70F per reading on my infrared thermometer. I took a pleasant dunking, then no soap washed my socks and T-shirt.
Mid-afternoon, it was time to climb up to viewpoints east of Mercur Peak. Upon reaching the top, I found extensive snowfields mixed with areas of rock, so I climbed down. I set up for a 4-row vertical frame of the whitewater stream below page top at right from Leighton and Yellowhammer Lake cascading down into Cherry Creek canyon with a nicely rounded dome on the skyline. To better appreciate the image, look at the enlarged vertical slice view. I took some modest telephotos of distant peaks, then checked out landscapes east of Mercur Pass I would be dropping down through Friday morning. There was one steep zone where I would be going through snow.
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I returned to camp briefly, switching to late-day gear that always includes my headlamp and warm North Face fleece jacket, then headed up to the saddle area west of Mercur Peak, which I had checked out after sunrise. After working 3 modest subjects of the beautifully curving exfoliating granite dome, with 90 minutes to burn before sunset, I continued north on the ridge through a mix of snowfields and rock outcrops, but views down into the canyon were blocked, so I returned to the saddle where I set up a 2-column horizontal frame stitch, then waited out the above sunset shot that occurred about 8:25pm PDT. As skies were still clearer than usual given the passing cold front a couple of days earlier, late orange-red light was more saturated than normal. At the right edge of my frame, a nice juniper snag pokes up into the sky.
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On my return to camp, I revisited the Jeffrey pine, Pinus jeffreyi. I had worked in the morning, setting up for the dusk-to-night wedge per the image above, which occurred at 8:46pm. Back at camp, I enjoyed a Knorr-Lipton rice meal before retiring about 9:30pm. The thought of climbing down to Cherry Creek early the next morning excited me.
After another pleasant night without the tent mosquito netting zipped nor any worry about possible bear visits, dawn came, and I was soon up making hot chocolate and packing up gear on this Friday morning, June 16, 2017. About 6:45am was on my route below past the soggy lodgepole grove and frog pond, then walking up and down piles of snow in the large joint crack the trail follows, escaping over the rim of Cherry Creek canyon to the east. Upon dropping more steeply into the canyon, snowfields covered more areas again as the trail, gushing with snowmelt water, switchbacked down the hill with considerable trailside rock work and steps. At one point it all disappeared into a snowfield where I made my way down about 50 feet of moderately steep vertical by vigorously kicking steps into the not-yet-soft snow. At the bottom of that snow, I vectored northeast away from the trail, gaining a ramp to open slab slopes I had viewed the previous afternoon from above, taking that snow free all the way to the creek 400 feet lower. There I took out my camera gear at a couple of fine subjects and worked whitewater images below Lord Meadows before continuing down to a wooded glen at 6980 feet. Then my route got into trouble.
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At the bottom of the cascades at 7000 feet on Cherry Creek is a long, curving pool surrounded by a dell with tall pines and a couple of outcrops with some steep slopes. Below the brushy outcrops are marshy willows and more brush. And within the tall trees are lots of logs wedged into the tree grove during high water. I chose to climb west around the willows, but that ended up being a worse choice because of heavy brush. Eventually, I thrashed through to the end at 6960, but not before expending a lot of effort that, much like the blueberry bog Wednesday, left me weary. I continued down more open areas of the canyon below and thrashed through yet another brushy patch I should have avoided before stopping. At that point, I pulled off my camera daypack and continued down; at about 10am I worked the above subject with my Sigma 19mm F2.8 DN lens where the creek is visible for a long, nearly straight distance down slabs per image above.
Note: besides the still images shown in this feature, I also recorded several short 15, 30, and 60-second 1080p video clips with my A6000 camera that I will eventually set up online on YouTube. For the sake of superior front lighting, images of whitewater downstream were shot in the morning, while those upstream were shot in the afternoon. Generally, whitewater images with a camera pointing upstream create better aesthetics, and on this section of Cherry Creek Canyon during late spring, with sun azimuth rising and setting about 30 degrees north of due east or west, the late afternoon sun altitude is much lower than early morning due to canyon orientation, a prime reason for targeting this canyon zone.
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About 10:30am, I worked this section of the stream beside a beautiful section of glaciated slab slopes. Such a bright white granite canyon works well mid to late morning for photographing whitewater falls and cascades because the exposure values between the two are close. Conversely, whitewater through an otherwise shady, forested, and/or dark rock zone would not work as well because the contrast would be greater. Obviously, the sound around these granite slab cascades is rather loud. The granite rock itself tends to be unusually clean, free of debris and dust; thus, the whole stream surroundings are a wonderful environment, as one finds at some ocean shores minus the sticky salt haha. I drank right out of Cherry Creek over my 2-plus days in the canyon, as any biological contaminants, such as Giardia, would be extremely diluted. The one big negative at this time of snowmelt is that the water is really cold at about 40F.
These two above close stream image subjects, as well as those below on the page, present a puzzle for those like this person interested in focus stacking multiple shots into single-frame images. The basic issue is that every time the shutter exposes the subject, the water in the scene changes enormously, making it impossible to blend in a way that the result will look natural. The rest of the scene is basically static and can be focus stacked and blended using usual post-processing. My solution to this requires first capturing all moving water areas with a single shot using an aperture with adequate depth of field, focused at a middle water subject distance while not resulting in too much inverse loss of speed that cannot freeze the water. With my Sony A6000, I will not go faster than ASA 200 in order to not lose resolution for serious work; thus, the above works best in brighter sunlight. In post-processing, I create a mask from the one water image and use that to mask off water elements of the static zone shots so they cannot be used during blending of the stack. I then blend all the shots. For most subjects, I might actually shoot the water 3 times, choose which one looks most impressive, then delete the other two. The same strategy can be used for other general subjects where there are moving elements.
I returned upstream and found several superb gruss flats well above the creek to set up camp at. Chose one with a fine view up and down the stream with a large Jeffrey pine for shade at any time of day. After cooking another meal of MH lasagna, while the pot cooled, I jumped into a 3-foot-deep quieter backwash of the roaring cold creek, then instantly exploded back out like a jack-in-the-box on steroids. Conveniently laid out where I went in, on smooth, warm glacial polish at the water's edge. Those I backpack with, and I do so almost every day regardless of how cold the water may be.
Of course the vast majority of backpackers never get into cold water regardless of how sweaty, dirty, sticky, itchy, smelly, and grubby they were earlier during a day on the trail, because... its cold and they are wimps. Thus the common brag one hears about how they have been on a trail XX days without taking a shower... and don't mind. Of course their expensive down sleeping bag is probably rather unpleasantly rank too. The trick is to get in and get out as fast as possible before the cold has time to conduct down to one's larger bones down deep, where it would compress the blood, fluid, and nerves inside, causing usual pain. Thus I quickly get in and fully go underwater, rubbing my face and neck momentarily, then bound out and immediately lie down on a warm, smooth rock. Within less than a minute, one is feeling much better and so clean and fresh. Amazing how wonderfully clean one becomes from even such a fast dip.
Abundant about Cherry Creek canyon granite flats were short height red Sierra onion, Allium obtusum, with white flowers that have tasty leaves. The leaves are wonderfully soft and juicy like lettuce, readily chewed into pieces. The mild onion taste is optimal, and I am able to eat a handful of leaves and repeat the experience minutes later. In my backpack, I often tossed a handful of leaves into the completed cooking from my packaged meals, especially the Knorr-Lipton rice meals. The image above left shows several leaves floating on the surface of my cooked Mountain House Lasagna with Meat Sauce.
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About 3pm explored upstream about the dell and found an awkward way through dense, marshy willows I would use Sunday to leave the zone. Stopped to work an area of backlit vibrant green rising corn lily plants above right and for an hour lounged under the shady tall pines about clean sands beside the sinuous pool. With the bright sun waning, about 4pm began working the large cascades just above with this 4-column stitch blend per image above. In the background are the still snowy slopes of the trail up to Boundary Lake. After the above subject, I worked a few more images that went well, then returned to camp.
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Late afternoon was back downstream and shot the above whitewater with my 19mm lens in optimal light at 7:30pm. Having also backpacked on a few trips down the Tuolumne River to view Le Conte Falls and Waterwheel Falls in high flows, there were more spectacular waterwheels along this section of Cherry Creek, although peak flow volume of Cherry Creek most springs would not be enough to be comparable. Waterwheels occur when streams gain higher speed flowing down lengths of unobstructed bedrock stream-bottom slopes and then run into narrow-width bedrock obstructions, causing water to shoot upward in arcs. They are usually not the result of hitting boulders because the intense force of such water will push any loose material down-stream regardless of weight. Accordingly the phenomenon is most common on immobile glacially smoothed granite bedrock. In the image below, most of the bumps in the flow were waterwheels.
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At 7:43pm, with warm light on the landscape, I worked with my 30mm lens, capturing the above whitewater from the bottom of a long, straight whitewater section. At this time of the summer solstice, when the sun sets furthest north of west, that is right down the center of the canyon over the relatively low ridge separating this main branch from the West Fork of Cherry Creek. Indeed quite an ideal canyon for late light early summer.
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With a dissipating band of cumulus clouds far in the background, I expected some nice dusk light color in the clouds, so I located the above subject of a shallow pool in a glacial polish depression, then captured the above at a late 8:47pm and was able to back away a good distance from the pool to use my 60mm, so more color in the distance would be within the frame. I also did not want to get too close to the whitewater, because shutter speeds in dim light are too slow, resulting in blur. I might have put on one of my neutral density lens filters to blur water to a silky smooth quality. However, light changes rapidly late or early, allowing just one good shot choice. Note areas of the polished granite left of the pool have cracked off. I then enjoyed walking up the stream a half mile back to my campsite in waning light that was approximately about the trees at the top of the whitewater in the image. Back at camp, I enjoyed a Knorr-Lipton rice meal in the dark, again not having to bother with any mosquitoes, and stayed up the latest into the evening on this trip.
I slept well that night despite the loud sounds of cascading water. Why not? There was little to be concerned about without mosquitoes, flies, bears, or other humans. And rose slowly, lazily rolling over at dawn before getting up only when the sun hit the tops of the west canyon wall on this Saturday morning of June 17, 2017. It would still be a while before that light dropped down to stream level, so I enjoyed a double package of hot chocolate. A couple of hours later, I was downstream at a familiar spot where I had taken a fine image Friday morning, where a backwash in strong whitewater flow was circulating, creating a whirlpool with an emerald green color, the trip's marquee image at page top, QY00044-53.
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My plan this morning was to first work areas further down Cherry Creek than I did Friday. On the way, I stopped to photograph the largest streamlet coming off the steep, towering west canyon walls in this zone that were fed from deeper cornicing snows at the rim of the Lake 7777 basin, 950 feet above. Where I set up, the water that had been spread out about small cascades and slabs above then found a small joint crack where it recombined into a raucous, fast narrow streamlet.
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I climbed up smooth slabs one hundred fifty feet or so above the creek to an optimal viewpoint down the creek to photograph where the canyon curves out of sight before the canyon's major dogleg left towards the reservoir several miles south. Reaching this spot required careful friction walking on smooth inclined granite. Attempting a down canyon hike carrying a heavy backpack at this time of high water would be dangerous because one cannot access the east side of Cherry Creek where gradients are lower. Note areas of avalanched snow blocks down at the creek level at 6800 feet, the lowest elevation snow I would find on this trip. The smooth, steep granite slopes above are extremely prone to avalanching during winter, so much snow piles up at the bottom about the stream. After that, I worked a few modest images, then returned to camp for several hours of easy lounging about enjoying.
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Late afternoon back down canyon to the long water slide, shot the above at 6pm. The nature of these granite slab landscapes without usual creek-side soil banks allowed me to get very close to powerful whitewater flows where splash zones are delineated by boundaries of wet and dry rock.
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At 6850 feet is a wonderful wide glaciated granite slab zone of the canyon floor with scattered trees, grassy green areas of soil, and at this time of snowmelt, lots of small streamlets. At certain early or late times of day, with the blue sky at a low obtuse angle, water reflects sky color nicely. Here at 6:25pm, I went for a wonderfully bright combination of the blue streamlet, green grass, Cherry Creek, and cyan-blue sky.
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I wandered up on the slab canyon slopes hunting for an optimal viewpoint to capture at 6:45pm, a broad landscape of the snowmelt streamlets, slab flats, Cherry Creek, and snowfields in the higher-elevation background. I used the 60mm medium tele so distant elements kept reasonable perspective and size.
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I wanted a late shot just before the sun dipped behind the West Fork of Cherry Creek Ridge. And I was rewarded with the above image in warm light at an amazingly late 8:03pm PDT. Note the long shadows on rock across the creek. It was time to hike back up the creek, having accomplished a couple of days of work on this target area I had been looking at on the map over years.
Sunday morning, June 18, 2017 was all about hiking out of the canyon hole I was in, up 1000-plus feet to the 7900-foot ridge above. It was now the peak of a heat wave setting records across the state and filling Sierra Nevada rivers with peak snowmelt flows. Thus, the sooner I made it up and over the pass before it became unpleasantly warm this day, the better. I had considered working some areas up about Lord Meadow, but that and upper Bartlett Creek lakes really need a few days of time that were best left for a future trip. And I have good reason to return, as the zone is so wonderful to experience.
Thus I trudged up through the uneven landscapes, stopping frequently every short way on whatever to sit down on. First made it up to the end of Lord Meadow, then up and up to Styx Pass. Whew! At my Thursday camp area, I took a longer break, then continued on across slabs towards the ridge. Was amazing how much snow had melted out in just a few days. By the time I reached the ridge, I had only had to walk across a couple hundred feet of snow versus the half mile on the route in. I could actually see the trail for long distances where it had been an unseen mystery beneath white.
Over the hump, it was now a long, mostly downhill slog of several miles to my target zone at 6670 feet, about 8 miles for the day. I stopped for an hour's lunch at one shady area with still-melting snow seeps for water, then slogged on mile after mile. Big thunderstorms were dark and booming over the high country by mid-afternoon, while Kibbie Ridge was just beyond the clouds. When I finally reached my target zone, that was about the same area I lost the trail on the route in getting into trouble; I did so again. Wandering about, wondering why the map and what I saw were not matching, I wasted 3/4 hour. It was then that I stopped, sat down, and carefully examined the map and what the landscape showed, and I actually discovered where I had made the earlier mistake in reading the map, thinking I was at a different location than I actually was.
So instead of an 8-mile day, it was nearly 9 miles, and I was pretty dead weary again. My camera had stayed in the day pack all day. As thunderstorm clouds with lightning and thunder looked to be finally moving over my zone, I made camp, took a dip in Snow Canyon Creek, made dinner, and just as the first raindrops pattered on my rain fly, retired. The rain was mostly light, off and on for an hour with a brief bout of hail. There were also a few more mosquitoes about late in the day than I had seen anywhere earlier on the trip.
Instead of rising and racing the nearly 8 miles back to the trailhead, I would spend 4 hours early morning exploring and enjoying this delightful slab and forest area on Monday morning, June 19, 2017. It was an optimal late spring date to do so, as the area was at peak greenery with many species of wildflowers about gruss flats and marsh areas. In just a few weeks, most hikers visiting these mid-forest elevations would find otherwise boring conditions, with such plants having run their course, gone to seed, and dried brown.
Above left is a close-up of short-height spurry buckwheat, Eriogonum spergulinum var. reddingianum, that covered much of the granite sand, aka gruss flats, that interspersed bedrock. Another short annual growing in the same areas was pretty pink with red dots: whiskerbrush, Leptosiphon ciliatus. In the image above right, the short flowers were next to a decaying long sugar pine cone.
Also, about these landscapes: these three modest images below the page top.
Picturesque burned stumps, QY00658-64, up in the sky.
Dense alpine shooting star, Primula tetrandra, in a wet marsh, QY00635-41.
In the same marsh area, a grove of quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides in front of three towering, QY00608-12, white fir, Albies consolor.
My final image below in my camp area, taken at 10:10am was a wonderful species find at the edge of a marsh meadow. There beside the trail was a large patch of wood strawberry, Fragaria vesca, many with their white flowers but all too early for their delicious red berries that, though much smaller than commercial varieties one finds in supermarkets, are in fact usually sweeter. Note the small balls of dew at leaf edges.
QY00665-74 5200x4000 pixels 1 frame 10 image focus stack blend A6000 60mm extension tube
enlarged vertical slice view
Before 11am I had broken camp, hoisted my not-quite-as-heavy pack onto my back, then began what would be a 7.5-mile mostly downhill hike back to the Cherry Lake reservoir dam trailhead and my Forester. A few clouds had begun to form over higher areas to the east, but skies were otherwise very sunny, with heat wave temperatures certain to make the afternoon even at these mountain elevations uncomfortable. After crossing a marsh, the trail climbed up 150 feet through a patch of head-high whitethorn. All along Kibbie Ridge, such trail patches were overgrown, with the brush branches spreading out into the narrow trail widths, thus needing trail maintenance pruning. Walking through such spiny, thorny sections wearing shorts would be a sure way to get stuck and scratched. At one spot I suddenly saw movement of something moving off the trail and then recognized a northern Pacific rattlesnake, Crotalus oreganus oreganus. The fat, 3-inch-diameter, 4-foot-or-so-long snake had been sunning in the trail opening and probably thought I was just a deer moving up the trail so lazily that it did not even bother to rattle.
I continued on, reaching shady waters of the Shingle Springs Trailhead at my day's 3-mile point where I enjoyed a torso dunk. On down another 2.5 miles and I'd reached the shores of the huge, very full reservoir. There, I took a longer refreshing break, getting into the not-that-cool waters, letting my by-now-sore feet recover a bit before the final couple of miles. By mid-afternoon, I reached the Subaru and was soon driving the 4 hours it would take to get home. A most successful trip, especially photographically, after I'd post-processed images of which there are more than those chosen for this feature. The adventure had not rolled out as I had ambitiously planned due to a lot more snow than expected. However, once arrived at the target zone and saw the conditions, I adapted, as I have needed to do so over many trips in the past. With my body stronger and more trail-adapted now, I am looking forward to more great 2017 summer backpacking trips.
NEXT: Page 13 Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest
2017 Trip Chronicles: Contents
