Tells and McConnell

[Vaca Russ]

I drove up to the Crystal Basin on Tuesday because…I didn’t want to work.

I inadvertently met Sarah Mussulman from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. She was at the trailhead getting ready to hike to Highland Lake. She is leading the effort to restore the habitat for the Sierra Nevada Yellow Legged Frog. See more at this link here:

http://www.highsierratopix.com/communit ... f=6&t=9974

This thread is relevant to studies:

http://www.highsierratopix.com/communit ... f=6&t=4033

The wild flowers on the Highland Lake Trail are currently in full bloom.

1 Flowers.JPG

Forni Lake is still beautiful…

2 forni.JPG

And the Brookies seem to be getting bigger!

3 Brookie.JPG

The hike up to Tells Peak is pretty straight forward even though the trail fades away a short distance after the lake. It took a while to find the register.

4 Tells Register.JPG

I was surprised to find this little thing.

5 Russ' Reg.JPG

There were just a few scraps of paper and very small pencil. The latest entries were made on an old print out of one of Snow Burd’s maps. There was no room left on the back of the map, so I contributed an Acme Mapper print out to the register.

6 Mc's North Slope.JPG

I then turned my attention to McConnell Peak. I really should have put more thought into how I should approach this summit. I just saw snow so I opted to climb the other side.

7 Mc's Slope Close Up.JPG

It doesn’t look so bad from this distance.

8 Bad Route.JPG

But after climbing through this mess I can best describe it as class 2 -3 bush whack. It really took quite a bit of effort to reach the summit. Then I had to decide which peak was the summit. I could not find a register and the first peak so I climbed to the other (higher) peak to the south.
I didn’t find a register there either. This is a photo looking north back at the first peak, Tells and Loon Lake.

10 Better Mc Peaks.JPG

I still need to climb these two.

Silver and Red.JPG

Thanks for reading my post.

-Russ