R03/R04 TR: Humphreys Basin in Perfect Stormy Weather! 8/9 - 8/15 2023

[oddtiger]

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing. I canceled my father-daughters trip to Humphreys Basin this weekend and this TR is exactly what we need at home. There's not much shade in the area. We prefer cloudy/stormy weather over the sunny days in August.

[grampy]

Thanks Ian, for yet another wonderful TR. I think my favorite photo is “Dawn Light on Muriel Peak”, but the first photo in the Mesa Lake segment (showing your tent site with such a dramatic backdrop) is also impressive. Glad that you are on the mend (and that Wolfie got to tag along on this one).

[windknot]

Thanks for the report! Echoing all the others, you've got a great collection of photos with dramatic storm lighting. I was a bit north of you in the Evolution Basin area at the same time and we got rain at slightly less convenient times some days, but mostly it rained as you describe -- when we were safely ensconced in our tent.

[wildhiker]

Thanks for the wonderful photos of dramatic storm light and the beautiful scenes of the Glacier Divide looking across the lakes. I feel envious. Looks like I won't get up into any high mountains until September - assuming the fires don't break out and cover the mountains in smoke.
-Phil

[Harlen]

Thanks for all the nice comments, I really appreciate them. Several friends, and now "Love the Sierra" here have questioned my campsite selection in thunderstorm weather. I guess to be responsible, I should simply say that as an old man, I have become blase about ultimate safety, and that perhaps my MO is a bad example to follow. This is how I replied to Aura:

Regarding campsites during thunderstorm weather, we do generally try not to be, or be near the highest thing around-- tree, boulder, hill... I am admittedly a bit more bold (reckless?) than cautious by nature, and I guess I just go with those genes rather than try to fight them. When we were camping with our kids I tried to be a lot more safety-minded.

Thing is, as a bit of a mountaineer, I am aware of the truly outrageous situations real mountain climbers often endure-- i.e., camping on exposed ridge tops, under seracs, or on avalanche slopes while on their way up mountains. Those folks stick their necks so far out, that I have become more willing to poke my own out at least a bit. Mesa Lake is a tough area to find a truly well-sheltered campsite Aura, but it is a wildly beautiful place that I really wanted to experience.

These questions about safety made me study up again on lightning safety, and in the end, besides what I said above, I was left uncertain by the conflicting advice re. what's best to do during a lightning storm.... Do you vacate your tent with its aluminum poles, sit on your pack?, perch on your pad? throw away your ice axe and crampons? I do like the idea of separating from partners by 50 -100 feet, though I've only done that once. Anyhow, I understand that there is a complicated mathematical equation that would tell us exactly what path lightning will take in given circumstances, but it's in Greek to me, and I'm only half Greek. So I'll just say again: "Good luck out there."

[LMBSGV]

It’s sure interesting to see Humphreys Basin with all that water, unlike when I was there last year and 2017. At that time, I was able to cross at the Lower Desolation Lake outlet. The rocks along the shoreline at Mesa Lake are now properly back underwater. It looked more like when I went in 1993. The one constant seems to be the rainy weather.

I also loved camping at Tomahawk and Mesa. The view of Pilot Knob (loved your sunset photos) from Tomahawk is priceless and the Glacier Divide from Mesa is one of my favorite views in all the Sierra.

Humphreys Basin really is a cross-country hiker paradise. With Mt. Humphreys and the Glacier Divide as markers, it’s nearly impossible to get lost. Like you, in my three trips, I hardly saw anyone when I was not on the Piute Pass Trail.

While I'm not a mountaineer, I share your fatalistic attitude about thunderstorms. While I’ll stay off high passes during a storm, if I’m going to be transformed into a french fry while in my tent, at age 72, I assume that’s the way it’s going to be.

[CAMERONM]

Looks like a great trip with great timing.

[druid]

Wonderful report and especially nice photos. My son and daughter and I just missed you in our own trip that started 8/16. Looking at your photos it appears we stayed at exactly the same campsite at Tomahawk with its sublime views of Pilot Knob and Glacier Divide. And the fields of flowers up there this year are certainly amazing, as you expertly captured in your photo "Lupine fields above Mesa Lake". We also experienced similar "perfect stormy weather" for a few days until Hilary hit the coast and chased us home a day earlier than planned.

[SSSdave]

https://www.davidsenesac.com/2018_Trip_ ... .html#aug4



SB06246-06300-4x1vb 12300x6000 pixels 4 frame 4 column 1 row 55 image focus stack stitch blend A6000 30mm

[Harlen]

LMBSGV wrote:

I also loved camping at Tomahawk and Mesa. The view of Pilot Knob (loved your sunset photos) from Tomahawk is priceless and the Glacier Divide from Mesa is one of my favorite views in all the Sierra.

Now we love it too Lawrence, never having camped at either one before. Strangely, I had remembered many years back, camping up at Humphreys Lakes and loving it, but we we hiked up there this trip it seemed too stark, and the view of the mountain too foreshortened. I must have loved it for the nearness to the mountain, which I was so keen to climb.

Here's a morning shot of Pilot Knob for you-- it's taken from T. Lake in the early morning.
p.s. What we'd really like is to see your photos of the area.