TR: Ansel Adams Wilderness 7/18 - 7/21
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 2:01 pm
Thanks to the feedback I received on this forum, our group had a great few days of backpacking. We ended up planning as we went which led to some backtracking. It rained briefly most days but otherwise the weather was perfect. Very little in the way of bugs - although I would have traded some more bugs for full streams in July. We started out at Agnew Meadows headed towards Thousand Island via Shadow Lake.
Per the advice gleaned from here, we camped up the hill on the north side of Thousand Island Lake.
View from about 20 feet above our campsite:
The next day we hiked to North Glacier Pass without our packs. We completely missed the trail and hopped boulders on the way up. On the way down we caught the trail and remarked how much easier it would have been - but not as fun.
We camped a second night on Thousand Island. The next day we debated doing a day hike to Donahue Pass or backtracking towards Ediza. We chose Ediza. Two of our group fresh off the fun of hopping boulders to North Glacier Pass decided to go cross country to Ediza. They started around the western edge of TI over to Garnet. They then ran into some other hikers that showed them a map of the 'High Sierra Trail' which appeared to offer a different route than Whitebark Pass that I read on this forum. They managed to cross over to Nydiver and then again over to Ediza all on the western edge of the lakes. They really enjoyed it and I'm not sure we will be able to get them back on a trail again. We all met up at Ediza and found a great campsite overlooking the lake.
180 degree view from Ediza campsite. You can see Ediza in the far right corner of the image.
After setting up camp, we hiked to Iceberg Lake.
We then carried on to Cecile. I'm not sure I would want to do the Iceberg to Cecile 'trail' with a full pack. It doesn't seem very forgiving of a possible trip or bad foot placement.
Lake Cecile:
Then back to Agnew Meadows:
Thanks again for all of the advice!
Per the advice gleaned from here, we camped up the hill on the north side of Thousand Island Lake.
View from about 20 feet above our campsite:
The next day we hiked to North Glacier Pass without our packs. We completely missed the trail and hopped boulders on the way up. On the way down we caught the trail and remarked how much easier it would have been - but not as fun.
We camped a second night on Thousand Island. The next day we debated doing a day hike to Donahue Pass or backtracking towards Ediza. We chose Ediza. Two of our group fresh off the fun of hopping boulders to North Glacier Pass decided to go cross country to Ediza. They started around the western edge of TI over to Garnet. They then ran into some other hikers that showed them a map of the 'High Sierra Trail' which appeared to offer a different route than Whitebark Pass that I read on this forum. They managed to cross over to Nydiver and then again over to Ediza all on the western edge of the lakes. They really enjoyed it and I'm not sure we will be able to get them back on a trail again. We all met up at Ediza and found a great campsite overlooking the lake.
180 degree view from Ediza campsite. You can see Ediza in the far right corner of the image.
After setting up camp, we hiked to Iceberg Lake.
We then carried on to Cecile. I'm not sure I would want to do the Iceberg to Cecile 'trail' with a full pack. It doesn't seem very forgiving of a possible trip or bad foot placement.
Lake Cecile:
Then back to Agnew Meadows:
Thanks again for all of the advice!