Something new-Linda's pack and my pad, something old-Jim's cooking pots, something borrowed-Linda's pad, and something blue-all our shirts. No, not a wedding, it was a three day, 15 mile out and back, backpacking trip to Kennedy Lake in the Emigrant Wilderness with Carla, Linda, and Tanya. We are off....
From Kennedy Meadows it was another one and a half miles to the Wilderness trail head.
The Sierra Nevadas are incredibly beautiful mountains. We crossed three bridges on our way up the mountain. The spaces between the bridges are the most challenging of this hike as the trail has large rocks that tend to accommodate horses more than humans.
Our campsite was at the near end of the valley, the lake was at the far, far end.
Tanya and Carla are the most technically oriented hikers. A hammock? We benefited greatly from their choices of what each brought in their packs.
Jim is the most experienced hiker and the minimalist hiker. We think his pack was the lightest because he knows how to do it.
Tanya was the only one with a tent...a cozy and warm, two pound tent.
Kennedy Creek was just a few steps away from the campsite. We saw fish jumping and osprey hunting.
Some time was spent filtering water. Fortunately, we had two filters because one ended up breaking. And we had a gizmo that boiled water in about one minute. Wow! This is high tech camping!
Jim took advantage of the late afternoon sun.
Jim built our fires when it started to get cool.
That boiler gizmo worked great to make hot tea and hot water for our dehydrated food packets. Everybody had a stash of chocolate to share!
Tanya brought some zinfandel for Happy Hour. Jim carried the tequila.
The second day we aimed for Kennedy Lake and a trail to the Pacific Crest Trail to Sonora Pass. There was a tiny bit of snow still high on some mountains.
We passed an old cabin while heading to the lake. Jim went on ahead threading his way through the marsh. If we had followed him closely, we might have made it to the lake as he did. As it turned out, we girls found ourselves moving through vast marshy areas. We could not find a way through, even though we saw the lake from a distance. It took us until mid afternoon to finally give up and return to our first campsite for our second night.
As we headed down the third day, we encountered two pack trains of one horse and four mules each going up to our campsite. Two different groups of people were hiking up with small day packs. There is hiking, and there is backpacking. We plan to go backpacking again before summer is over.
