lambertiana
Gold Member
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- Jul 7, 2000
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Friday after work I went with a friend and someone my friend knows for a quick overnight trip to Franklin Lake in Sequoia NP. Franklin Lake is my home away from home in SEKI.
We went up the fun Mineral King road (25 miles of 1.5 lane wide rough pavement with a few dirt sections, gaining 6000' with 698 curves being the official count) and got to the trailhead at Mineral King (7800' elevation) at 7 PM. I only got a few pictures before it got too dark. First, the creek we crossed at the trailhead in evening light
About a mile in is my traditional first break spot on the trail, and the waterfall on Franklin Creek. This is an extraordinarily dry year, so the flow is quite low.
After that, it got too dark for good pictures. We did most of the hike in the dark. When we got to the Franklin Creek crossing at 10,000' the moon came out, and with the bright almost full moon shining on white granite, we no longer needed headlamps and did the final mile by moonlight only. When I got up yesterday morning, here is Franklin Lake from camp in the morning
I usually get up early and summit one of the peaks (Florence Peak, at 12,438', the big one in the picture above, is one of my favorites, with a fun boulder scramble the final 400' vertically). But neither of my companions were interested, so I decided to do a little exploring around the upper lake, which is on the shelf in the center of the picture above, at the bottom of the face of Florence Peak. On the way there:
There are some nice foxtail pines there, and they are one of my favorite sierra trees. They can live well over 2000 years.
The final approach to the upper basin involves a lot of boulder hopping
The upper lake is very nice
Then I headed back down toward camp. Here is the view from the edge of the shelf, looking down at lower Franklin Lake where we camped:
When I got to the shore of lower Franklin Lake, I took this shot looking back up:
When I got back to camp my companions were already packed up and they left while I packed. On the way down I got pictures of things that we passed in the darkness on the way up:
This is looking down toward the trailhead in Mineral King. The trailhead is by the clump of trees at the bottom far end of the canyon:
This is from the trailhead looking up. Franklin Lake is to the left and behind the high peak on the left side in the background.
And to close the loop, a picture at the stream crossing at the trailhead, this time in full sunlight
We went up the fun Mineral King road (25 miles of 1.5 lane wide rough pavement with a few dirt sections, gaining 6000' with 698 curves being the official count) and got to the trailhead at Mineral King (7800' elevation) at 7 PM. I only got a few pictures before it got too dark. First, the creek we crossed at the trailhead in evening light
About a mile in is my traditional first break spot on the trail, and the waterfall on Franklin Creek. This is an extraordinarily dry year, so the flow is quite low.
After that, it got too dark for good pictures. We did most of the hike in the dark. When we got to the Franklin Creek crossing at 10,000' the moon came out, and with the bright almost full moon shining on white granite, we no longer needed headlamps and did the final mile by moonlight only. When I got up yesterday morning, here is Franklin Lake from camp in the morning
I usually get up early and summit one of the peaks (Florence Peak, at 12,438', the big one in the picture above, is one of my favorites, with a fun boulder scramble the final 400' vertically). But neither of my companions were interested, so I decided to do a little exploring around the upper lake, which is on the shelf in the center of the picture above, at the bottom of the face of Florence Peak. On the way there:
There are some nice foxtail pines there, and they are one of my favorite sierra trees. They can live well over 2000 years.
The final approach to the upper basin involves a lot of boulder hopping
The upper lake is very nice
Then I headed back down toward camp. Here is the view from the edge of the shelf, looking down at lower Franklin Lake where we camped:
When I got to the shore of lower Franklin Lake, I took this shot looking back up:
When I got back to camp my companions were already packed up and they left while I packed. On the way down I got pictures of things that we passed in the darkness on the way up:
This is looking down toward the trailhead in Mineral King. The trailhead is by the clump of trees at the bottom far end of the canyon:
This is from the trailhead looking up. Franklin Lake is to the left and behind the high peak on the left side in the background.
And to close the loop, a picture at the stream crossing at the trailhead, this time in full sunlight
