Flutterby™! : To altitoad part two!

Apologies for the gamma issues, these actually look pretty good on an LCD: To expand on yesterday's post: This weekend we went up to Rainbow Lodge, just shy of Donner Pass. Had an awesome dinner on Friday night, Rainbow Lodge has an amazingly varied menu, especially for being where it is, hung out and learned to play euchre into the evening. In the morning, after gawking at the foliage to the left (and yes, I'll be adjusting gamma and tweaking these images, they were taken "raw" with the Canon D60 and the conversion software isn't compressing the extended contrast range as nicely as I'd like), we packed up (for reference, that was my full camera bag, including tripod, and a good quantity of water), took Bill's brand new Honda CRV 'f'roadin', or at least down some pretty rough forest service road, to the trail head. Bill stayed back at the lodge to write, secure in the knowledge that he's now got at least minimal SUV cred, but the rest of us hiked from the 7,600 feet there up to Castle Pass where we joined the Pacific Crest Trail, down to Round Valley, back up around Basin Peak.

We scrambled up to a ledge overlooking Paradise Lake, gasped for a while, and, convinced by the topo and a description in the book, Dave, Leo and I decided to skirt the edge of the bluffs and try to descend down a ridge to Paradise Lake, while Sonja and Phil went down the switchbacks of the Pacific Crest Trail. As Leo later reports, we misread the book. When we found the right passage, it says:

"...skilled mountaineers can descend north along the west side of an impressive buttress that descends to the southeast shore of Paradise Lake. Although relatively safe by climbing standards, this is a Class 3, somewhat exposed, route that invites serious consequences for the unqualified."

Not too bad, but there were a few "when I say 'don't fall', what I mean is: 'don't fall'" moments, at least one traverse on a sloping ledge where slipping would have meant finding a body.

Paradise Lake was gorgeous. A little fall color around the edges, high mountain, surrounded by granite, lake. We were still early for our rendezvous, but the going was moderately tough, gaps between rocks slowing us down, so we wandered around the edge, found the trail down to the lower lake where we were meeting, and, amazingly, got to the intersection within 10 minutes of each other, an hour before the "implement plan B" time.

It's darn good to know I can still do 13 miles at altitude with a fully loaded pack. Dinner back at Rainbow Lodge was, once again, spectacular. More euchre and talking late into the night. Sunday morning an early breakfast, then back to the Bay Area.