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NEXT: Page 5 Green Creek Backpack 2of2
2025 Trip Chronicles: Contents
Green Creek Backpack 7/24
Green Creek Backpack 7/25
Green Creek Backpack 7/26
On the morning of Thursday July 24, 2025 after driving to Tracy, I met at brother S's, brother Js that had driven down from Vacaville, and his old friend Jn from Texas. They moved gear into my 2023 Trailblazer LS and then we proceeded eastward. At Sonora we added some pre-hike food for later and I added enough gas so would not need to buy any more during our return from the eastside of the Sierra Nevada where gasoline is extra expensive. We did stop in Bridgeport so Jn might buy fresh meal worms, but they were not available. On these two trip pages given it was a group trip, I will be adding a bit more camp life and route hike content than I normally do that tends to just focus on photography. Any images worked with my Sony a6700 MILC have gray borders while informational photos without borders were shot with my Canon ELPH190 compact digital camera.
By early afternoon we reached the Green Creek trailhead at 8030 feet where we spent about 45 minutes finalizing our gear that was mostly Jn dealing with filling an unfamiliar pack and gear. This 135 pound senior's total carrying weight was about 59 pounds that included 7 pounds of food including containers and 17 pounds of photo gear. The rest of the parking lot was full, indicating there would be plenty of others in the backcountry.
We would be out 6 days and 5 nights given a Toiyabe National Forest, Hoover Wilderness permit I had secured online at recreation dot gov 3 days before. Our first 2 nights would be about the west end of Green Lake and our last 2 at the north end of East Lake with one night TBD. As with all my trips, I created an Excel sheet (downsized at left below) of mileages and vertical hiking statistics as well as a custom topographic map (downsized above right) from caltopo dot com that I had printed out copies of and distributed to the others. We finally began moving down the trail about 3pm. This day's totals would be just 3.3 miles over 1135 vertical upward feet and 175 feet down.
The outside temperature on this sunny day was rather warm, so trail ground temperatures baked us in radiation heat whenever we moved through sunny zones. Thankfully, at least some of the route had shade. The first 9/10 mile is on an unpaved road for the campground and summer cabins near the West Fork of Green Creek with little vertical. I had trouble with the nylon Cordura waistband digging into skin on my back that quickly created bruising that would later become light scabs that I would have for the next ten days. On our first stop, I solved that issue by tightening my shoulder straps.
I was also wearing new Zamberlain VIOZ GTX boots that would prove over the trip to be the most comfortable and functional boots I've yet experienced, just like my now worn out pair. Per my usual strategy, we stopped frequently. The last half of the route had lush stream seep areas that had plenty of mosquitoes, so we eventually applied DEET to open skin areas. But otherwise, as someone that each summer targets the most aesthetic phase of these environments while mosquitoes may still be numerous, open skin areas were limited due to my usual Levi 505's, a mosquito-proof lightweight nylon shell jacket, and draped sun hat. None of us were in ideal fitness shape. I had Direct left inguinal hernia surgery on May 1 that required following weeks of inactivity.
Both Js and Jn, against my advice had packed cans of beer that contributed to a pokey effort that is something I've tried to prevent in the past. In any case, my personal interest on this first day was just to manage reaching the destination however long that took, setting up camp, exploring the near areas a bit, and then retiring early. Since mileage and uphill efforts were relatively easy for what was never a serious trip, that kept my protesting minimal.
The last half mile was on an unmaintained trail that routed along the north side of Green Lake through lush stream vegetation and snow avalanche tree trunk debris. In places, that use trail was difficult to follow as it branched around no longer active routes. Otherwise, the rest of the well used old use trail up into Glines Canyon well beyond where we camped, was easy to follow and well made. We reached our destination zone a bit after 6pm and dropped our packs at an obvious well used campsite within a shady, wind protected, dense lodgepole pine grove.
It was the only flat tentable location on Green Lake's west side with near views of the lake. Fresh clean, cold water in the inlet stream from Glines Canyon was a couple hundred yards away. I explored upstream of the Green Lake outlet for other possible camps but did not find even primitive relatively level spots more than 50 feet from the creek. Across the south side of the creek was a dim, dark, mosquitoey forest with much down wood from flood though it did have some dreary flat campable areas no others had ever used.
So we camped at that well used camp site which was a bit closer than the NFS policy of at least 100 feet from lake edges nor trails. But that was ok per the exception policy, as there were no other reasonable options as other areas were either on a constant forested slope, within the inlet stream marsh, even closer to the creek, or at least another half mile up Glines Canyon. In our area, the forest service had placed up on a tree, a NO CAMPING sign, within a nearby flat closer to the lake that indicated the NFS was fine with tenting further back as far as possible where we did.
Some recent wilderness environmentally destructive visitors had built an ugly fireplace up against a large boulder that is against policy, piled up much firewood, and left lots of black sooty debris about. The following day I scattered all the collected wood. My cooking spot below left with its rock seat also shows the well used grubby nature of the ground there. Cumulus build-ups had arisen that sprinkled nearby mountain areas but not our area. Although our camp site was well used, far fewer groups visited this side of the lake. The lake's east side given a large trailhead quota, being just 2.7 miles from the trailhead, is very heavily used.
I managed to leave at home, a 14 inch square of 2 inch thick foam I normally use just underneath my pelvis, that had me a bit sore from laying on the hard ground with just my Z-Rest foam pad. Before the trip, I had set up my now few years old tent (Green tent in above image right.) then applied Flex Seal rubber spray ($17 at Home Depot) to the tub bottom and all seam areas. Also repeated that to the worn Cordura bottoms of my Osprey backpack and daypacks. Will highly recommend that product.
I slept well over the two nights prior to the trip and then the first 4 hours of this Thursday night. But then didn't sleep much over the final wee hours, as the hard ground bothered my pelvis bones. At early dawn Friday July 25, 2025, I awoke to peek out my tent screen towards superb dawn earth shadow colors eastward. So made plans to be ready to photograph that on the following morning. The weather forecast showed some possible clouds and minor thunderstorm weather and important to this photographer, relatively calm morning breezes. And indeed our lake surface was relatively quiet. However this day 2, I would be fishing first as landscape subjects were rather limited down deep within Glines Canyon while the lake itself has modest aesthetics.
After a bit of breakfast, Js and I rambled to the marshy south end of Green Lake where we climbed up along the steep, unstable, vegetated slopes, where deeper water was just offshore and thus more likely to contain larger fish. The marshy areas required walking through sections of boot-top water my new boots were made for. Using a silver Kastmaster, I immediately began catching fish and within a couple hours had caught 5 pan sized eastern brook trout plus a small rainbow (released) that I dispatched, cleaned, and Ziplock bagged. I had hooked a large one fish meal, at least 14 inches but lost it within a clear view about ten feet of the shore. Js was having various line loop off the reel tangling issues, was irritated with items he failed to bring, and lost his sunglasses in talus.
Back at camp for lunch cooking as a team, I began frying the fish in Js's new, excellent 13 inch frying pan while he made some complementing Minute Rice. In the future, will need to bring along some wider aluminum foil that we cover frying pans with as our method is more a frying pan multi phase bake process using only minor amounts of frying oil where the foil is placed over and removed a few times. With our cooking process, during cleaning, we remove heads and guts, then after being mostly cooked, we remove backbones, fins, tails. We finally mix in rice to the fish for a last heating phase that is served adding salt. We use the same set of small pliers that we use to invert release caught trout, to grab hot backbones so forks can then pull away flesh. The trout lunch was a delicious start to our trip. There were chipmunks about our camp and one carried away one of Js's plastic forks.
Mid afternoon, the 3 of us explored upstream a bit where we settled down to enjoy a nice stream area of cascades. The creek from Glines Canyon was just wide enough that crossing the mostly shallow stream required some boot top walking in water. The rest of the day, I absorbed myself with photographing stream seep wildflower areas while the other two fished our camp shores.
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As expected, mid season wildflower species were at peak, especially about stream and seep areas. The above log waterfall stream section within a dense lodgepole pine forest, has crimson columbine, aquilegia formosa, at frame left, with further back, tiger lily, Sierra rein-orchid, soft arnica, ranger buttons, and swamp onion. Such short log waterfalls are common within forested mountain slopes where tree trunks falling across streams eventually become aesthetic dams. The sunnier east facing Glines Canyon slope wildflowers had peaked 2 to 3 weeks earlier. There were significant areas of gone to seed, drying, silver lupine that gives me reasons to return about early July in the future. Cumulus cloud build ups arose but none produced even sprinkles.
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Per portrait orientation image above that would make great art for some door, Glines Canyon intimate wildflower seep stream, primrose monkeyflower, mimulus primuloides, Lewis's monkeyflower, mimulus lewisii, swamp onion, allium validum, brook saxifrage, saxifraga odonyoloma. My new Sony a6700, given focus bracketing, is made for subjects like this that were once rarely possible.
During the morning with near calm waters, few fish were ever feeding on our side of the lake as trout are afraid of occasional osprey and seagulls that can then easily see them. Due to night cold air sumping breezes down Glines Canyon and from West Lake's stream, the lake is rarely dead calm at sunrise. A usual upcanyon breeze began mid morning due to expanding sun heated air in the Bridgeport valley areas that became stronger in the afternoon. The wavy surfaces, given less bird visibility, allowed larger rainbow trout to move in from deeper waters that dancing black gnats near lake edge surfaces helped entice.
Js caught 3 rainbow trout over 11 inches that put on quite a show jumping out of the water and lost a large fish just as I had, while Jn began catching trout too from the rocky point near our camp. Despite being in a rather mosquitoey zone, the flying whining draculas were never much an issue except in a few near stream and seep areas as I applied DEET just once or twice while relying on protective skin covering clothing. Many novice visitors wear shorts, cotton t-shirts, and a baseball cap that are fine after say mid August but not practical Sierra Nevada gear earlier at near timberline and alpine areas where most destination lakes are formed.
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After a night of much waking and uncomfortable turning on the hard surface, on Saturday July 26, 2025, our day 3, I was awake pre-dawn about 4:40am and quickly put on clothing, a blind hand feeling squirming process inside a compact tent. The air temperature was mild in the high 40Fs with lake waters shimmering a bit though usably calm for reflective purposes with just some cold sumping night breezes disrupting the surface. Actually for dawn/sunrise sunset/dusk, I aesthetically prefer a slightly wavy watery look. More importantly, a scattered cloud deck of Great Basin clouds left over from Friday cumulus build-ups, showed some dim color. Out of view beyond the horizon, clouds further east apparently blocked earliest dawn light that held promise but never developed.
However near sunrise, the sun topped whatever blocking clouds that allowed the above colorful sunrise which lasted in various intensities over several minutes. The blue sky within shows this selected shot from the series was just before sunrise and not earlier pre-dawn. A raven flew across the frame as I managed to capture one frame of with the bird and its reflection ideally near frame center.
While Js and Jn slowly rose enjoying breakfast and coffee, after quickly boiling water for Swiss Miss hot chocolate, I rambled half a mile up Glines Canyon to a large seep zone just above where we had enjoyed Friday afternoon in order to capture some wildflower landscapes using diffuse sky lighting while breezes were light and sun was still blocked by ridges and forest. Due to slight night cold air sumping flows, this Glines Canyon zone is unlikely to ever be dead calm during early mornings. At page top, seep stream wildflowers pearly everlasting, anaphalis margaritacea, soft arnica, arnica mollis, tiger lily, lilium parvum, crimson columbine, swamp onion, allium validum, Eaton's daisy, erigeron eatonii, yarrow, achillea millefolium, Sierra rein-orchid, plantanthera leucostachys, Lewis's monkeyflower, mimulus lewisii.
The image above at page top is a 4 column focus stack and stitch blend from 78 shots. Such subjects given the high camera resolution, would in the past using my 2014 Sony a6000 have been impossible in all but absolute dead calm due to misregistrations, but with the short period of automatic shooting in the a6700 Focus Bracket mode while waiting for brief periods of near dead calm, such was minimal and later in post processing fixable in Zerene Stacker.
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Close-up of tower larkspur, delphinium glaucum. It's relative, monkshood, also common in these seeps, has the same purplish blue hue but with a very different flower shape. Unlike many flower species in which initial out of bud color saturation is highest and then fades due to sun bleaching, with this species, the highest saturation occurs after flowers have expanded.
Most of my Sony a6700 work using either my Sigma 30mm or this 56mm F1.4 DC DN prime lenses are focus stack shot at F5.6 that is lab tested to be the highest aperture resolution and fidelity. By adding one shot focused generally at an average distance to a flower stalk at F2.8, I can better blur backgrounds without making blurring ridiculously unnatural. There are reasons I will instead sometimes complement shots at F8.0 and even F11 given near parallax elements.
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Glines Canyon seep stream wildflowers, tiger lily, swamp onion, Lewis's monkeyflower, arrowleaf senecio with lodgepole pine, pinus contorta, behind. I continued hiking upstream as far as the Par Value Lakes stream at 9350 where I saw the old rusting gold mining machines. Note at frame lower right, is a drying, gone to seed silver lupine, lupinus argenteus. Such a vegetation subject with tall flowers sticking up high above the rest are only possible in uncommon near dead calm. Such intimate green wonderland images are much more impressive at 100% pixels on a large 4k UHD monitor. I worked a few other subjects including individual flowers close-ups, however was plagued by slight breeze movements I was not later able to fix in post processing. Thus bailed at 8:30am, so hiked back down to my second photography target where we had fished Thursday that takes more time for the sun to reach due to the blocking ridge.
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Reflection at 8:43am with at the shallow marshy southwest bay of Green Lake where the Glines Canyon stream flows in. On the opposite shore are Sierra willow, lodgepole pine, and mountain hemlock. My Sigma 19mm F2.8 lens resolution even F2.8 is relatively soft, so I reduce the image size about 25%. The gray metamorphic rock in the background peaks, tends to also exaggerate softness at the image size is reduced for web display. The moist partly cloudy atmosphere, also reduced overall sharpness while shadowing sections of the landscape. This period of near calm was brief as the lower Bridgeport valley warm air expansion, upcanyon breeze began balancing the opposite direction, night cool air sumping breeze.
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By mid morning, had clawed my way up the steep southeast Green Lake slope to a lichen adorned rocky knob with open views. Using topographic maps and Google Earth, I pre-trip plan locations like this where I can efficiently work expansive views. this view above is across to the north side of middle Glines Canyon. On this steep northwest facing slope below 11000+ foot Gabbro Peak, is considerable metamorphic talus with seeps. Most of the near conifers are snow loving mountain hemlock, tsuga mertensiana. Also many Sierra willow, salix eastwoodiae, quaking aspen, populus tremuloides, and blue elderberry, sambucus cerulea, growing in areas of talus where their roots reach down below to water flowing atop bedrock. On peak 11320+ at center are wind and snow avalanche stunted Krummholtz form whitebark pine, pinus albicaulis, with towering 12000+ foot Virginia Peak in the background beyond Virginia Pass within Yosemite National Park. Behind the granite outcrops lower mid right are a few lodgepole pine that along with douglas fir, dominate the lower forest at our camp zone. I have not identified the prominent light green tree lower left, just behind this bedrock. When Js and I walked across the steep slope lower down to fish, we were continually stepping on all manner of blooming wildflower species.
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Just right of the previous image, lower north side of Glines Canyon and peak 10960+. The glacially smoothed rusty rib frame lower right above the forest, is where I climbed up to for a view of Green Lake. Mid frame left below a scree fan, is a strip of lighter green of aspen. That is the start of the best seep wildflower zone that was just below that where I worked the image at page top. Quaking aspen grow there where water, gravity flowing beneath talus, resurfaces at depths their roots can reach. But because of snow avalanches, remain in a stunted form below the mean average snow depths.
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Above image using my 85mm medium telephoto lens, viewing our west Green Lake camp zone shores. Our camp was left of the rocky point. We couldn't reach any of the closer marshy shorelines where the creek entered the lake and Sierra willows were dense. Note lighter green at frame mid upper right above the lake, where more stunted aspen thrive that is also where the use trail is most awkward. The shoreline to the south where the stream from Glines Canyon meets the lake is an inaccessible marsh. Most trees within our camp zone are lodgepole pine with douglas fir and mountain hemlock.
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A 19mm wide angle lens view of the west side of Green Lake with the colorful lichened metasedimentary geology knob in the foreground. West Lake is to the left of the distant saddle. Note at frame mid left, the rusty rib I climbed up to above our camp per text below. My camera daypack plus tripod weighed 17.5 pounds and I often move about in such areas while hand holding the tripod with mounted camera. In steep areas, I'll often use tripod with legs extended as a stabilizing pole though such is an awkward gymnastic skill. I'm constantly installing and removing lens caps and using microfiber cloths and or a Pocket Rocket air blower to clean my lens surfaces. West Lake lies beyond the saddle in the background ridge.
Views of our grubby camp zone. Js cooking at left with Jn beside the recently blackened boulder by inconsiderate ignorants. Although campfires are legal at the camp site since it is slightly below 9k elevation, it is against NFS policy to create fires against boulders. Later that day, I scattered their wood pile, part of which is at frame bottom left. One reason I wear Levi 505 jeans besides protection from sun and mosquitoes, is because I'm often sitting about in such places including right on the ground. After several days, my pants may be rather dirty, but my legs inside are far less so. I also tend to wear lightweight knee pads everywhere, as am also constantly kneeling. I fully submerged in lakes 3 times during the trip, as much prefer feeling clean within my sleeping bag each night. Notice Js's neck drape cap headwear, a most important item against mosquitoes.
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After returning to camp about 10:30am, Jn decided he and Js needed to climb up to West Lake to fish that although just 2.4 miles trail distance, is about 900 feet of uphill. Cumulus build-ups were increasing and by mid afternoon scattered sprinkles were occurring with more serious storms out east. They belatedly left near noon while I explored the marshy Green Lake trail zone north and then climbed up a seep stream. There I found another superb seep stream wildflower zone. Despite the variable wind, I was able to wait out a short calm period to capture the above though reduced the image size due to blurred element movement areas noticeable in the full image. Tiger lily, monkshood, aconitum columbianum, Sierra rein-orchid, soft arnica, corn lily, lodgepole pine.
I continued climbing up to the top of the rusty rib just northwest 200 feet above camp where I took a few photos with my ELPH190 per above as the partly cloudy landscapes didn't offer any serious work.
At the top of the rib per image at right, that was well above legal 9k feet campfire elevations, was a recently built and used fireplace of a style I've seen elsewhere, where morons (likely same ones as did so below at our camp spot) do so atop hills like this that over decades I've destroyed many of. I tossed most of their rocks and scattered the black coals, the next thunderstorm will finish off.
Jn and Js did reach West Lake, a significant accomplishment, but due to their late start and increasingly dangerous weather, they didn't fish too long before heading back down. Js caught a beautiful pan sized brown trout and they were getting plenty of action. J's hiking boots had begun to fall apart, with the soles separating. He used up some duct tape he had to improve that. They would save frying their fish till the next day at lunch and instead enjoyed some of their other packed in food. One can never fully depend on catching fish, so I personally tend to err on the side of bringing enough meals if we don't.
We didn't encounter any bears and per policy, had food in bear proof canisters if they did. I did see chipmunks, chickarees, pika, marmot, mice, garter snakes, Clark's nutcrackers, Western fence swifts, and various small bird species. I do tend to keep the netting on my tent zipped up that prevents insects and mice from entering.
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2025 Trip Chronicles: Contents
