I last of my photos...
The temps were perfect: Nighttime lows in the upper 40's/low 50's; daytime highs mostly in the 60's and 70's where we were at or above 10,000'.
Walt Gibson, a friend of mine I recently connected with at the ORI lunch, and I headed into the Sweetwater Range on Thursday. Although Walt had, before buying his current white Jeep JK with Maggiolina atop, done some 4x4'n this was his first foray into the mountains in recent times.
Needless to say he as well as I had a blast. Even though this was the fourth time in the Sweetwater Range in the past 12-months I never tire of being there! We camped, like last year with some of you, at Belfort. The buildings have seemed to have taken on even more weather wear; especially the stone miner's cabin just south of the flats before heading up to Mt. Patterson.
Friday Walt & exited via Sweetwater Ranch. We counted 5, yes FIVE, ranches there on the Sweetwater property. Must be the sons and daughters or possibly the grandsons and granddaughters of the Italian family that owns and works this ranch: What a beautiful way of life; or so it seems from the outside looking in
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We, after getting a $5 shower at the laundermat in Bishop, met up with everyone at Jack's Cafe (thanks Jereme for turning me/us onto this place!).
Rohitash, Lata, Isha in their recently acquired 2003 blue LX470, their wonderful friends from the Bay Area in their Range Rover; Shawn in his cool 60; Jay & Jay Deshelter from Los Altos in their '00 100-Series with their modified M101 (Marine, NOT Army, vintage we found out per Walt!) in tow, Jeff Hunter, AKA "Campfire" on the boards in his recently white 100 addition, along with Walt Gibson, who lives here in Reno in his white JK with Maggiolina and myself: 7-rigs and 2-trailers packed full of wonderful food and camping gear!
After lunch and airing down we all started the climb up to CF. Lots of "wows" from this group. And even though I've been to CF numerous times I never tire of this trail and jaw dropping scenery.
Aside from a starter issue with the Range Rover on the way up to our campsite everyone did very well. We secured my favorite group campsite up in the trees and proceeded to 'snap caps'; that'd be pop open beer bottles for you non-drinkers. With nighttime lows only in the upper 40/low 50's it made for perfect camp sleeping.
Saturday morning we headed to the Schober Mine site. Walt was riding with me since his camp was deployed atop his Jeep. It had been about 3-years since I was last on this particular trail. It all looked familiar and I was sure I was on the right trail...until we ran into a couple, that we had passed on the trail yesterday, in a 4-door Rubicon with bling-bling wheels. We stopped and briefly chatted. They commented to Walt and I" "You know this is JUST a dead end trail don't you?". WTF? Did they somehow miss the 9.9 on a 10-scale scenery? Did they somehow miss the ginormous view of the Sierra Mountains and the John Muir Wilderness. Was the hulking rock piles of near 14,000' Mt. Tom, Mt. Morgan and Mt. Humphreys, among many others, somehow invisible to them???!!! So there for a couple of moments I thought I was on the wrong trail!
Once over Coyote Ridge and down the other side on the way to Schober Mine the view is...well damn amazing. Shocking actually for those that have not been here before. We hiked around the mine site and basked in the bodacious views before getting explorerlust once again.
I wanted to check out a trail, after speaking to Alvaro about this area the week prior. The trail, assuming it didn't run into a fence, locked gate, Wilderness sign, etc. would lead us all the way south to Green Lake. The trail snakes up, down, around and through a nice forest. Some of these trees, not being the absolute tree expert, sure do look like Bristlecones to me!
We were able to run the trail to its end right atop Green Lake. From there, after a nice lunch, we all hiked in different directions exploring the mountain candyland we'd found.
...More to come.
