Been taking me forever to get to finishing pic uploads from the last trip. Finally have some time to finish it up this weekend. Here is Day 3
Edited to add: I just noticed that BF resizes the images to fit in your browser window. I have the panoramas sized at 1920 pixels width, so you can see the detail in the pics; when it's compressed in the browser window and not displaying at full size, it's blurry. So make sure you expand the window and scroll through the image, if you want to see the panoramas in full res and detail.
Woke up to a nice view of the lake peeking through the boulders and trees.
Of course, I can't stay abed, but my GF has no problem
Lake view as the morning sun lights up the basin walls.
Little area drying up near outlet.
Sun!
Awake yet?
Nope. Guess it's back to the lake
After a while, the GF got up and we had breakfast on the slab bank, overlooking the awakening lake. Some left over Molinari from yesterday's skipped lunch for an interesting addition
Quite a blessing - gazing at the lake in the silent stillness of the morning... being awed as color, warmth, and motion floods back into a world now awash with light.
After breakfast, instead of doing the longer loop I had wanted, we opted to just climb up Grand Mountain from the lake to get the views from the top, then come back down and move shop to WL8947T for greater tree coverage before the afternoon/evening thunderstorm hit. This is the view of the lake as we started climbing.
From a little higher up:
zoom on camp:
a little more zoom:
Panorama of NW view from Grand Mountain, with a glimpse of the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne.
The view NE from the top of Grand Mountain were spectacular! I think we may have gotten better views if we had continued a little further south along the ridge, but it seemed like we were on the top when we got up there. Didn't really look like there was higher ground from where we came out on top, and I didn't check the topo then, just going by eye. A higher spot seemed apparent though, when looking back up at the mountain from lakeside, when we returned to camp. One of those false summit situations I guess, with the trees in the way. Oh well, next time. It was still gorgeous.
iPhone version
The GF really enjoyed the view.
Sorry for multiple shots of the same thing, it was just awesome.
[video=youtube;GhkctbQS3Ls]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhkctbQS3Ls[/video]
We spent a little time up there just taking in the views, then headed back down. The GF wanted to have some time to swim and lie lakeside in the sun, before moving camp. We had to stop to take in the views NW from the side of Grand Mountain on the way back though
[video=youtube;C-2GGKkd5-4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-2GGKkd5-4[/video]
Lots of cool quartz up there!
Ran into this "cool" chunk of marble; it's crazy how much cooler the chunk was relative to the surrounding rocks. Incredible contrast.
Another view of the lake on our way down.
Back down! Shot with the iPhone.
The GF was eager to get some quality lake time in
Ah! Refreshing.
Grand Mountain.
After soaking it up for a bit, we packed up and headed back to WL8947T. Good timing too because the weather started rolling in.
Started raining gently for the late afternoon. Pretty.
View from camp.
Eventually, as evening drew on, we went from gentle rain and and enjoying the view...
To buttoning up and hunkering down as the rain intensified, lightning and thunder joined the party, and a little hail fell. I had gotten a little lazy and pitched on a slight slope to get us a little view of the lake (all the nice flat spots were further up the hill and generally without views), so we had to scramble to prop up our groundsheets as we got a little more water than we had anticipated. Had a little stream run under our shelter for little bit during the storm, haha... Next time thunderstorms are in the prediction, I'll just deal with the weight and bring an inner for the bathtub floor. Less hassle with two people.
[video=youtube;Y8vr2koZbUk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8vr2koZbUk[/video]
Last day coming shortly!