I was in Mammoth Lakes yesterday for a few hours and took the dogs with me to get out of the heat and get a little walk in. I drove up to the Lakes Basin to Horseshoe Lake only I couldn't get to Horseshoe Lake. By car. The road is closed about 1/4 mile before the lake.
Because there is still a lot of snow up there. I think Horseshoe is around 9500 feet so this is probably indicative of many of the other higher lakes and a good preview of the backcountry. I did meet a PCT hiker coming out and he was dressed in shorts so I guess it isn't too bad out there... but they must be enduring wet, soggy feet with all the fording of creeks, all the slogging through meadows, and all the times they post-hole through. I gotta hand it to them - most of them are very determined. Of course, hiking the PCT takes months of preparation and planning - not a dream you would want to abandon despite the challenges of a late summer.
There aren't just the occasional drifts left - there is some substantial snow, especially in the trees. It was fun to see kids playing in the snow and lots of people checking out the waterfalls and the temperature was in the 70s so you know this snow is melting fast - there's just a lot of it.
The lake is still partially ice-covered and you can see the far side is still blanketed in snow. In a "normal" year this campground would be full and there's be people sunbathing, dogs swimming, and a steady stream of hikers heading up to McCloud and beyond.
There's something about snow that really energizes the dogs and they had a fabulous time romping around.
It doesn't take much for this young one... a pine cone, a scrap of a branch and she's off in her own little doggy playground.
She tries hard to ge the older one to engage but often he has more important things to do, like carefully, thoroughly, sniff every shrub and tree to determine who's been by.
They went in the water, cause that is what labs do, but they didn't stay long.
Third week of June and this is what the campground is looking like, folks. Good thing? No mosquitoes yet. I don't know that I can remember a year when Horseshoe wasn't open by June although I'm sure it has happened. We just forget those years. And will be grateful to see this lake full as there have been plenty of years when it was just a puddle.
And look at all that snow in the backcountry. Will it melt before the first snowfall of the 2011-12 season? Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if it didn't - sort of a stockpile up there against the unknowns of the next year.
Ive got to end with a couple of shots of happy, happy dogs - finally the sage old guy decided to humor the persistent young dog and play for a bit.
I love watching their dynamics - she's got the strength and the agility to take him down but he still holds a dominance over her that he was careful to establish right from the first moment we brought her to live with us.
She still looks to him for reassurance and back-up when they head outside to investigate something. Last night they were sent out to break up a party of yowling feral cats and the old guy takes that job very seriously (and he is very good at it). He tolerates our cat but has little patience or affection for the ones that wander into the yard looking to beat up our guy (and neither do we - we wish the feral cats would live elsewhere).
We are heading out later today to round the horn of the Sierra and spend some time up at the VVR (at last). Out of the valley heat for awhile and into the pines... my next post will be via satellite.
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