Kibbie Lake TR
Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 7:44 pm
Returned from our 3-night Kibbie Lake backpack, Sunday afternoon. So last night feeling somewhat wimpy on the 4th got to hear a few hours of loud bangs about my very urban neighborhood here in Silicon Valley. Someone had too many long lengths of Chinese firecrackers.
I had phoned in for a WP reservation Thursday morning and set up a night box pickup that we grabbed at the Groveland RS on the drive in about 7pm. By time we got to the Kibbie Ridge trailhead and dealt with gear issues, twas already 9:20pm or about two hours past what I hoped for. But off we two went with flashlights. My bro Joe is not as enthusiastic a night hiker as I am haha but it went well. About 11:45pm we reached the destination about 2 miles in that required about a quarter mile crosscountry through some unpleasant burned areas from 2003(?) with downed logs and too much whitethorne. Slept soundly about a wide expanse of dry granite bedrock and gruss. Thankfully squeets were asleep enroute though we were in full battle gear and juiced up.
Slept well, woke at dawn, did some pre-sun photog. A bunch of smoke was billowing up from a fire. Maybe was a controlled burn because it was gone by afternoon for good. Fire in the Big Oak Flat area(?) and began moving up the Kibbie drainage making for an unpleasant smell. Otherwise a fine sunny day with usual afternonn breezes. Then made our way the rest of the way to Kibbie Lake at 6560 feet that is about 4.5 miles and 1k feet from the Shingle Springs TH. Wildflowers were just now peaking everywhere in the landscape in this cool delayed early summer so it was a good choice. The expanses of glaciated granite bedrock, many joint cracks, and granite sand flats between bedrock, had considerable pussypaws, mountain pride penstemon, Sierra onion, whiskerbrush, Bridge's gilia, Layne's monkeyflower, and pretty face. Many flats were covered by just rising short green grasses during this brief annual period of greenery in what by mid summer is bright, hot, brown, and unpleasant. Forest areas and moist meadows had many more species including dense mats of Brewer's lupine.
On a leisurely pace stopping for pics, we reached our campsite at the lake about 10am, set up camp legal lakeside in a shady lodgepole grove at a point one can see up and down the west shore, then went fishing for lunch. A couple other groups were already at the 3/4 mile long lake but more would arrive the next couple days. Well I rigged up a #14 flying black ant and within an hour had caught a nice 11 inch rainbow. Joe tossed out a Kastmaster and reeled in a nice 13 inch mature fish with terrific coloration that lake is known for, plus a 10-inch fish. Enough for a lunch, he did the frying and I made the rice. Mosquitoes were few during most of the day, in part due to large numbers of damselflies and dragonflies. So we lounged about shirtless in shorts for hours. However early and late when the former fly not, minor numbers of mosquitoes were out so during those hours we wore appropriate clothing, head gear. Only applied some DEET a few times and got bit just twice all trip. Lots of fun the rest of the afternoon. Water temp was pleasantly in the low 60s so we were in and out a few times each day. Lakeside western azalea were all budded out with maybe 20% showing their big very fragrant white flowers. Made for a nice fragrance about our shore:
Next morning we rambled north along the shore and while Joe fished, lugging my view camera I climbed up a big dome to expose a sheet of film down along the west shore. Note the triangular cliff at midground that rises maybe 70 feet was where someone cliff jumped while making a grainy YouTube video. The lake has many major cliffs directly into deep water though access to the east side of the lake is an unpleasant bushwhack. A place I've camped at nonetheless a few times in the past.
Down below my bro did well catching his 5 fish limit up to 12 inches. And a bit later that made for a second big fish lunch. Joe had brought along some semi-dry mangos to which he added a bunch of the abundant Sierra onions all over sand flats to my rice. This pic a wider image from my G10 showing most of the lake. No snow anywhere in the drainage but streams and seeps had good flows reflecting the wet cool spring.
We had an enjoyable afternoon with more water fun and explorations. Sunday sunrise a diablo wind was blowing from the east. We packed up, left, and had hiked out in about 3 hours. Along the way we met Joe A'n, an old timer volunteer wilderness ranger who checked our permit. We traded some amusing stories for about fifteen minutes. We'd seen a couple groups camped way too close to the lake and a couple groups had built firerings and fires which are illegal now at Kibbie. Would be amused to hear how dealing with those groups went.
David
I had phoned in for a WP reservation Thursday morning and set up a night box pickup that we grabbed at the Groveland RS on the drive in about 7pm. By time we got to the Kibbie Ridge trailhead and dealt with gear issues, twas already 9:20pm or about two hours past what I hoped for. But off we two went with flashlights. My bro Joe is not as enthusiastic a night hiker as I am haha but it went well. About 11:45pm we reached the destination about 2 miles in that required about a quarter mile crosscountry through some unpleasant burned areas from 2003(?) with downed logs and too much whitethorne. Slept soundly about a wide expanse of dry granite bedrock and gruss. Thankfully squeets were asleep enroute though we were in full battle gear and juiced up.
Slept well, woke at dawn, did some pre-sun photog. A bunch of smoke was billowing up from a fire. Maybe was a controlled burn because it was gone by afternoon for good. Fire in the Big Oak Flat area(?) and began moving up the Kibbie drainage making for an unpleasant smell. Otherwise a fine sunny day with usual afternonn breezes. Then made our way the rest of the way to Kibbie Lake at 6560 feet that is about 4.5 miles and 1k feet from the Shingle Springs TH. Wildflowers were just now peaking everywhere in the landscape in this cool delayed early summer so it was a good choice. The expanses of glaciated granite bedrock, many joint cracks, and granite sand flats between bedrock, had considerable pussypaws, mountain pride penstemon, Sierra onion, whiskerbrush, Bridge's gilia, Layne's monkeyflower, and pretty face. Many flats were covered by just rising short green grasses during this brief annual period of greenery in what by mid summer is bright, hot, brown, and unpleasant. Forest areas and moist meadows had many more species including dense mats of Brewer's lupine.
On a leisurely pace stopping for pics, we reached our campsite at the lake about 10am, set up camp legal lakeside in a shady lodgepole grove at a point one can see up and down the west shore, then went fishing for lunch. A couple other groups were already at the 3/4 mile long lake but more would arrive the next couple days. Well I rigged up a #14 flying black ant and within an hour had caught a nice 11 inch rainbow. Joe tossed out a Kastmaster and reeled in a nice 13 inch mature fish with terrific coloration that lake is known for, plus a 10-inch fish. Enough for a lunch, he did the frying and I made the rice. Mosquitoes were few during most of the day, in part due to large numbers of damselflies and dragonflies. So we lounged about shirtless in shorts for hours. However early and late when the former fly not, minor numbers of mosquitoes were out so during those hours we wore appropriate clothing, head gear. Only applied some DEET a few times and got bit just twice all trip. Lots of fun the rest of the afternoon. Water temp was pleasantly in the low 60s so we were in and out a few times each day. Lakeside western azalea were all budded out with maybe 20% showing their big very fragrant white flowers. Made for a nice fragrance about our shore:
Next morning we rambled north along the shore and while Joe fished, lugging my view camera I climbed up a big dome to expose a sheet of film down along the west shore. Note the triangular cliff at midground that rises maybe 70 feet was where someone cliff jumped while making a grainy YouTube video. The lake has many major cliffs directly into deep water though access to the east side of the lake is an unpleasant bushwhack. A place I've camped at nonetheless a few times in the past.
Down below my bro did well catching his 5 fish limit up to 12 inches. And a bit later that made for a second big fish lunch. Joe had brought along some semi-dry mangos to which he added a bunch of the abundant Sierra onions all over sand flats to my rice. This pic a wider image from my G10 showing most of the lake. No snow anywhere in the drainage but streams and seeps had good flows reflecting the wet cool spring.
We had an enjoyable afternoon with more water fun and explorations. Sunday sunrise a diablo wind was blowing from the east. We packed up, left, and had hiked out in about 3 hours. Along the way we met Joe A'n, an old timer volunteer wilderness ranger who checked our permit. We traded some amusing stories for about fifteen minutes. We'd seen a couple groups camped way too close to the lake and a couple groups had built firerings and fires which are illegal now at Kibbie. Would be amused to hear how dealing with those groups went.
David