July 7. Day 67.

Mile 1027.9 to Kinney Lake (mile 1050).

Miles hiked: 22.1.

Went a bit over budget today on miles, owing to the weather and lack of good sites where I planned to stop. The day started normally enough: packed up and hiking by 6:30 or something, stopping to stretch out some kinks after a mile, sipping coffee over the first few miles. The trail followed along the western ridge above the E Fork of the Carson all day, first going up and down short steep little wrinkles and around granite boulder promontories, then turning west and suddenly entertaining another volcanic area, this time with scattered comes of crumbly columnar basalt similar to Devils Postpile but not quite so perfect.

Geology contrast.

Next the trail sidehilled out along a a gentle slope painted with flowers below a pointed ridge called Disaster Peak. I stopped for a quick snack break with Phil, Hufflepuff, and Firefox, under some twisted pines looking back up to the distant saddle at the head of the Carson. We crossed a little side ridge jutting east off the main spine, and a big dark cloud began to grow and darken right overhead. It was still only about 11 when the first rumbles began, at first off to the south but before long right on top of where I was hiking. At one point I was stopped to take a picture and there was a lightning bolt right on top of me; there was hardly any time between the flash and the huge boom, and I could hear some static or some sort of crackling in the air. 

So I started walking a bit faster, the trail now thankfully dropping from the broad, open exposed hillsides of the last several miles down into a forested canyon. I took lunch/siesta by a little creek, but only lasted an hour before I got cold under the dark cloud and a bit antsy about the weather.

The trail climbed up a little saddle and crossed into the Mokelumne River watershed, an area my family has been explored or 3 generations (going on 4, thanks to some cousins). The trail climbed the side of a hill with views across to Highland Lakes, the site of family camp outs, then crossed over a small saddle back to the eastern slope of the range.

This is when things got a bit interesting.

As I dropped down toward Ebbett's Pass, the cloud overhead darkened even more and the rumbles became louder and more frequent. A few raindrops spattered down so I stopped so me and my pack could put on out rain jackets. On down past little Noble Lake, which looked a bit like a cow pond to me, and the rain started getting heavier. And the lightning more frequent and closer. Racing down some switchbacks now, some hail mixing in with the rain, shorts soaking through, jacket dripping, trying not to slip on the wet irregular volcanic rocks on the trail. Finally making it down into a grove of Red Fir, just as the hail starts to really get with the program. At first the stones were just the size of peas, but pretty quickly they grew to marble size.

 And they hurt. 

I huddled right up against the trunk of a big fir, peering up at great risk to my eyes to make sure it wasn't the tallest one around, since the lightning was still right on top of me going like the 4th of July. Hailstones were bouncing every which way, and had about halfway covered the ground by this point. Another hiker named Icebath huddled in with me, and while we were chatting about who knows what a little mini-flash flood came churning down the mountain right past us, hailstones riding on its crest.

Once the hail turned back to plain old rain I started walking again, now getting pretty cold in my wet shorts and thin rain jacket. I soon came to a series of creeks which were swollen and chocolate milky and overflowing to run down the trail. Luckily they were still only calf deep so wading across was no problem. Then a bowling ball-sized rock tumbled down off the hill 5 feet behind me. A dipper just hung out on a rock overlooking the muddy torrent; a little rain is no problem for Dippers, they walk around under water.

The rain eventually slowed to a sprinkle then pretty much quit, and I made it to Ebbett's Pass and Hwy 4 starting to warm up but still with pretty cold hands. On the side of the highway I found Fix It, who was yelling and cursing because he'd just accidentally left his phone in the car of the people who just dropped him off. The main loss, he said, was all his photos. I hiked on glad I've been backing my photos up.

I planned to camp at a lake just a half mile past the pass, but the big mean cloud was still threatening and the only real campsite was pretty exposed. I got the water I needed to dry camp and continued on, expecting to go just another couple hundred yards to some trees I saw. But these didn't look very good, and neither did the next grove, and before long I'd hiked another 2 miles.

 My hands were a bit blue but my core temp was sort of OK as I started setting up camp. But I'd picked the hardest possible ground to try and pound stakes into; the coarse granite rocks I was using for hammers were actually breaking while the stakes hardly budged. I relocated 20 feet and got everything pounded in. Then I started dinner water and nailed my bear hang setup on the first throw.

Evening chores done, I sat down by the lake watching fragile most drift across the surface and the subtle last light on the hills all around.

Birds:

Mountain Chickadee 

Hermit Thrush 

Oregon Junco 

Cassin's Finch 

Red-breasted Nuthatch 

Yellow-rumped Warbler 

American Robin 

Clark's Nutcracker 

Pine Siskin

Golden-crowned Kinglet 

Brown Creeper 

Hairy Woodpecker 

Wilson's Warbler 

Lazuli Bunting

Lincoln's Sparrow? Feeding fledgling

Rufous Hummingbird- heard wing buzz but not seen

White-crowned Sparrow 

Chipping Sparrow- fledgling 

Ruby-crowned Kinglet 

Fox Sparrow 

Williamson's Sapsucker