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Mount Conness
The date is June 28, 2003 and my wife and two kids are on week three of a four week vacation with her parents, leaving me with plenty of time to backpack and day hike. Unfortunately during that time I've had to cancel a 5 day backpacking adventure in Mineral King, then I came down with a bad case of Shingles and I had car troubles on another trip that prevented me from enjoying the whole day. I really needed to get out!
I asked Richard if he wanted to join me on a day hike someplace in Yosemite. He suggested Mount Conness which was okay by me because it is on my list of places to see. He also brought along Robert who is a long time friend. Robert brought his fishing gear, only thinking we would go to Alpine Lake. So the three of us drove up near Saddlebag Lake to start our adventure.
The first part of our route followed an easy trail that wandered through the trees and past the Carnegie Institute Experimental Station.
Can you imagine having a small cabin up here and waking up to this every morning?
Back to reality. We are now traveling off trail as we head up to Alpine Lake. For some reason, I'm not feeling as well as usual. We are "only" at 10,000' and I'm not usually bothered by that kind of elevation. The others are doing fine so far and the only concern is finding the easiest way up without hurting ourselves.
Alpine Lake at last! This is a quiet lake located around 11,000' and about 2 miles from Mount Conness. For reasons unknown, we stop here momentarily without replenishing our water. A mistake that we would later regret.
Climbing up out of the Alpine Lake basin we pause for a much needed rest break before we reach the base of the mountain. I'm almost content on staying here for the rest of the day, but there is the summit to see.
Climbing up out of the Alpine Lake basin we pause for a much needed rest break before we reach the base of the mountain. I'm almost content on staying here for the rest of the day, but there is the summit to see.
Our progress is slow, but steady. At one point I nearly gave up due to exhaustion, but after a rest break I slowly made my way up to the group.
The views from up here are wonderful!
I believe this is North Peak on the far right. As I stated before, I wasn't doing as well as normal so as I was taking pictures, I wasn't remembering exactly what was being photographed.
We finally reached the plateau of Mount Conness with the summit just within view. This is as far as I got. I was almost out of water by this time and I knew a summit attempt would require more than I had. Richard and Robert were out of water, but decided to continue on to the summit. I laid down on the rocks to rest, took this picture and waited for their return.
This section had some exposure on both sides of the trail, one slip here and its all over. Both Richard and Robert were experiencing a little vertigo and wisely decided to turn around. There's always next time.
With dark clouds forming above us, we wisely decide it is time to head back…quickly.
All of us are now out of water. We stopped and filled our water bottles with ice-cold water from the nearby melting snow.
<em>"In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him."</em> ~Psalm 95:4
Now energized from the recent water re-supply we are starting to feel more energetic. Richard takes the easy route, glissading back down to Alpine Lake.
The clouds are getting darker and we hurry down as fast as our tired bodies will allow. While not on the peak, we still would rather not be on the exposed granite should a thunderstorm begin. We made it back to the car pretty much in one piece, although I did slip on a rock as we were coming down from Alpine Lake. Thankfully the storm didn't hit until later that evening, after we had finished dinner. Did we learn anything from this adventure? We underestimated the effort it would take to get there and we knew better to pass up a reliable source of water, yet we did. Despite our mistakes, we had enough sense to turn back when we didn't feel comfortable with our abilities and physical condition. The mountain will be there next time. Richard and I are already planning a second attempt. Until next time. Update: Richard and I returned on September 27, 2003 and made it to the summit —>
On our second attempt we stayed the night before the hike at the Sawmill walk-in campground to better help in our acclimatization. This seemed to help us as we had a much better time on this trip. We also stopped at Alpine lake this time to top off our water supply! This is the knife-edge leading up to the summit. I was slightly concerned about exposure here, but was determined to make it.
Here I stop and pose along one of the narrower sections before heading up through the rocks behind me.
With just a few feet to go, this is what the view is like near the summit.
Finally made it to the top and it was worth the wait and the effort!
Posted
February 25, 2022
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“Hikin Mike”
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