Day 1 I started in Snake Creek and hiked down North Fork Big Wash, up South Fork Big Wash, and slept in North Fork Lexington.
Day 2 I continued up and over Granite Peak to Mustang Spring and up and over to Lincoln Peak.
That meant Day 3 I was starting near Mt. Washington and I was headed back to the trailhead to complete the loop. I set up my alarm for 4:30 am so I could climb Mt. Washington and descend the other side to the Magic Grove. I really wanted to be at the Quarter Tree for sunrise.
I got there a bit before sunrise, so why not do the Tree Pose near one of my favorite trees?
And then the colors started popping as the sun came up. It was so magical!
So much beauty. I couldn't really take it all in. Just wow!
And the views didn't stop. I was just in so much awe.
Finally I decided it was time to continue. Here's my hiking shadow.
The tree was pointing the way!
The good views didn't stop. The dramatic cliffs of North Fork Big Wash and Lincoln cirque highlighted the wildness of this place.
I kept on trekking, getting a bit lost on the Snake Divide Trail. It's not really a trail. It's a route. Or maybe just a suggestion in places. So if you go up there, be sure to have a GPS or GPS app on your phone. Some sections are starting to get more heavily eroded, so hopefully a trail crew can get up there and put in some water bars. And mark the places where it's easiest to get off trail!
I saw one other person on the trail, during the three days, an off-duty maintenance employee about a mile from the trailhead. It was a lovely, quiet get-away. When I got back to the Shoshone trail, I noticed one of the waterbars had NCC on it -- Nevada Conservation Corps. They're a crew that the park hires to help with trails.
Their waterbars were doing a wonderful job of getting the water off the trail!
And then I was back to the accessible fishing area on Snake Creek. Back to water! And back to my regular life.
This turned out to be an excellent adventure. It definitely had a lot of off-trail and bushwhacking parts to it. Having hiked many of these sections before gave me confidence to link them all together. Water was the biggest thing in my head, as there are so few water sources in the southern part of the Park, but they all worked out fine. I didn't mind all the ups and downs of the terrain, probably because I kept my pack fairly light. I purposefully didn't keep careful statistics or track what I did. But it was somewhere in the range off 30 miles and 11,000 feet up and 11,000 feet down. I used most of what I brought with me, but definitely overpacked the food. I could have done without the sun umbrella, although I really did enjoy it on day 1. I could have left the stove behind, and might for some trips now that I know cold soaking is a decent alternative.
If you're thinking about going out and doing something wild, go for it! It does the soul good!
1 comment:
Very beautiful. What fun!
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