2003 Desolation Wilderness Backpacking Trip - Day 2
(Friday, 29 August, 2003)
See also my photo gallery from this
day.
I slept OK, but not great, with repeated visions of creatures eating our stuff
(silly, since bear cannisters are virtually impregnable by anything). After
several false starts, I woke for good at 7. Sarah realized she'd forgotten
her coffee filter holder, which caused a minor panic until I improvised one by
poking a hole in the circular aluminum heat reflector for our stove and
rolling it up, which worked a treat (so well, in fact, that I'll not bother
packing a filter holder in the future). Our breakfast of ginger granola and
powdered milk hit the spot. The Crystal Range looked really lovely in the
early morning sun, especially reflected in the nearby lakelet. We gathered
our day-hike gear (I was using the lid of my backpack as a lumbar pack and
carrying one Nalgene bottle in a belt holder), critter-proofed our campsite,
and hit the trail at around 9, destination Pyramid Peak via Lake of the Woods.
It was a pretty hike along the trail to Lake of the Woods, about three
quarters of a mile away. I'd heard it was a pretty lake, and I was not
misinformed! From every angle it was a sight, featuring excellent reflections
of the Crystal Range and Pyramid Peak. There was a magnificent campsite a
short ways from the trail, with a nice stone sitting circle,
strategically-placed rocks for kitchen use, etc. (If you're looking for it,
its at the northwest corner of the lake). The trail traced the eastern shore
of the lake, then descended granite slabs on its way to Ropi Lake.
The trail on the granite slabs was, as they often are, faint and difficult to
follow, with only the occasional rock duck to mark the way. After perhaps a
mile or so, we came to the east shores of Ropi Lake. Ropi Lake looked like a
miniature Lake Aloha, with many small islands. As we walked around looking
for a way to cross its gushing outlet river (which roared loudly down the hill
into Pitt Lake), a fellow on the other side asked us what lake this was, which
we thought an odd question, since he was obviously camped here! He showed us
the easiest crossing, Sarah waded across an old dam, while I walked across a
fallen tree, and I pulled out my map to show him where he was.
It turns out he was in a group of 4 that had come up from the Twin Bridges
Trailhead the previous evening. They were looking for Lake of the Woods, but
were too tired to go farther than Ropi Lake (he said they were each carrying
80 pound packs - ouch! And I thought my 40# pack was unreasonably heavy!), so
they set up camp there. Their only map was a 10th generation photocopy of the
Desolation permit zone map - absolutely worthless, as it showed only the two
major lakes and no trails. I was a bit surprised that someone would set out
with a combined total of 320# of gear and no usable map. Stil he was a
friendly fellow and offered the use of their water filter to top off our
supplies, and gave Sarah an empty Gatorade bottle when she realized she'd lost
one of her Nalgene bottles. One of the fellows asked us if we went to a
church, which I thought was a rather odd (and personal) question to ask a
stranger. He then gave us a booklet - apparently part of their 80# pack
weight was taken by carrying numerous religious propaganda pamphlets to give
to random people! We beat a hasty retreat from that bizarre-ness, and
continued hiking around Ropi Lake.
It took us a long time to skirt the lake, as there were no trails and many
large boulders to climb or go around. As we neared the south edge of the
lake, I realized there was no way we were going to be able to climb Pyramid
Peak at this point, as it was already after 1 and we hadn't even begun the
climb. I also came to the conclusion that I was not thinking when I
decided that bringing 1 liter of water would suffice. So we decided instead
to go lake-hopping and explore the numerous lakes in the south Desolation. We
continued walking around Ropi Lake, catching a peek of Toem Lake, making for
the gushing outlet of
Desolation Lake a ways above us. The going was very slow, as the granite
slabs were often broken by deep gullies that had to either be skirted or
climbed into and out of. Though slow, it was fun clamboring around on the
rocks and playing rock climber. On crossing Pyramid Lake's outlet
stream, we came across a patch of beautiful Grass-of-Parnassus. We soon met a group of folks from Tahoe who were
doing more-or-less the same thing. They said it was a lovely hike upstream if
you didn't mind some steep climbing, and that the second lake we'd come to
(unnamed on our map, but referred to by them as "Fun Lake") had a great ledge
to dive from.
We eventually got to Desolation Lake's outlet stream and followed it. It was
a noisy but cheerful companion as we climbed a couple hundred feet to its top
and Desolation Lake. It was a lovely lake and we decided it was a
fine spot to have lunch and treat some water. After letting the iodine do its
job and munching on salami and cheese pita sandwiches, we continued upstream
to "Fun Lake." It indeed had a nice ledge to jump from into deep blue water,
but we weren't inclined to freeze to death so we passed on that. We did,
however, enjoy some genuine rock climbing above the lake, which was fun (at
least I thought so :).
Above "Fun Lake" was Channel Lake. Ho hum, another crystal-clear alpine lake reflecting nearby
mountains. We were getting spoiled by this point! We thought it
would be a good idea to look for a crossing since our campsite was on the
other side of the lakes, but after some fake-outs, no dry crossings proved
availble near Channel Lake. We continued upstream to American Lake
and finally found an OK crossing involving some partly submerged rocks, a
fallen tree above a white water rapid, and an old broken dam. Surprisingly,
we easily found our way back to camp even though we were coming in from the
other side. We had to go way out of our way several times to get around
myriad lakelets, but eventually arrived back at camp, tired but happy to have
enjoyed a day of boulder hopping and lake vistas.
It was around 4:30, too early for dinner, so we milled around, laundered our
dirty trail clothes, took a sponge bath and dipped our feet in a lakelet
(which was too cold to go swimming in, much as I'd have liked to). While
filtering water, I saw a little striped snake in our lakelet -
cool. Come dinnertime we had "trail pizzas" consisting of pita bread, Boboli
sauce pouches, salami, and cheese. They actually tasted very good -
definitely a repeat item! The only issue was that our pita breads were
getting very damaged from being put into and taken out of our bear cannister.
Although they'd do fine in a normal bag, they were just a little too big to
fit comfortably in the cannister. After cleaning up and critter-proofing our
campsite, we went to bed at 8'ish.
Day's statistics:
| Distance: |
~7mi (wild guess) |
| Total Time: |
6hrs 58min |
| Elevation gain: |
1,000 feet |
| Difficulty: |
7 |
| Scenery: |
8.5 |
| Trail condition/markings/etc: |
7 (Lake Aloha to Lake of the Woods), N/A (rest) |
| Overall rating: |
8 |
Trip links: