return to pinnacle lake

as a mad send off for mary, who was certainly one of the gang, the four of us decided to hike to pinnacle lake.  it was also kinda a send off to summer and a chance to do some awesome.

the 4 awesomers

so mary, kris, louie and i piled into louies truck and headed past cherryville and to the trailhead for the 7 km-ish hike to pinnacle lake.  these are their stories...
none us packed so light and it really was a killer hiking up, but we sure were glad later for all the stuff we brought.

some big cedars

the trail starts off innocent enough.  through some logging and into some old growth cedars.  cool in there.  literally and figuratively.

louie likes them

after about an hour, the trail leaves the forest and enters a big open valley.  it's quite a dramatic change.  there are land slide chutes up both sides, and we walked up the middle in some long wet grass.

kris chilling on the 1/2 way boulder.

it's not long before the falls wall comes into view.  the only downer is knowing that soon we will have to gain about 350 feet in less than a km. the falls are pretty darn cool.

falls wall

there was no way i was going to stop and take a picture on the switchbacks up.  we were all feeling the grind and our mission was, at that point, just to get up the wall.

at the top finally.

once at the top, the view was pretty cool.  would have been cooler if there weren't forest fires all over with smoke clogging the valleys.  we were not in a fire area so we weren't going to burn to death.

it wasn't far or steep from the top of the falls to the lake, but it was latish when we got there, so setting up camp was our first priority.  after all that climbing and carrying, sleep came soon and was certainly earned.

the next day was chilly, and hot, and chilly, and raining and sunny and raining.  but it was a pretty nice morning and a sick view to start the day.

i took a walk to the top of the wall to see if any of the smoke had cleared.  alas and alak, it had not.

late morning was when we went to get some cooking fire action happening and realized that a vital part of the saw was missing.  lost on the trail somewhere.  time to improvise.  it worked awesome.

mcgyver would be proud.

then it was time for a little day mission.  it would have been sweet to climb up the scree into the more alpine areas, but the rain made the rocks waaaaay to slippery to attempt.  we had a sweet walk about lission in the lower bowl walking around the lake and checking out cool stuff.

the camp from afar

there is a little island in the middle of the lake.  we got to see it from all sides.  pretty much a cool pile of rocks.

with so many rocks everywhere, lots of them were pretty cool.  some random veins and cool stuff like that.

random cool rock vein

we got back in the early evening and got to some cooking.  checked out some new recipes, like baked bread ando made from scratch.  it's gonna be a new regular on our adventure menus.

mary whipping up some dough

the evening was awesome.  and cold.  very cold.  like sleep with your gloves on cold.

sleep with your gloves on cold

if we had random weather yesterday, today added a new dimension.  the clouds were pretty low when we woke up.  it was chilly.

then the rain started.  sideways rain with crazy wind.  everything got soaked.  we broke camp in the rain.  good thing we didn't have to set them up again this trip.

if sideways rain wasn't enough, snow.  about an inch or so of it.  it was still august.  what the heck.  i guess i like snow more than rain though.

the snowline was visibly moving down.  when the snow finally stopped we were still socked in with clouds.  and wet.  very wet.

about then was when we just got it done. no more pictures, no more talking, just packing.  then walking.  the snow and rain stopped as we were heading down, but we were already soaked, but in good spirits.

then we were down.  much faster than up.  we dumped our wet stuff in the back of the truck, got in, turned up the heat and headed to to blue ox pub for burgers and celebration beers.  what a great trip.