June 1, 2007

• MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND CAMPING – Eastern Sierras

  decided to go camping with sheila a few weeks ago but really hadn’t planned much…. but last minute decide the eastern sierras was the best and we’d meet sat at noon at tom’s place….
  
  pat and i woke up at 5ish… actually more like 530ish and packed my car up and headed out by 6ish… drove through yosemite and ran into a little traffic going in…but after that it was smooth sailing…the cool thing is we actually made it to tom’s place around noon! hung out a bit there and soon enough sheila, guadalupe and the doggies showed up…

  

  drove up and find a really nice campsite AWAY from everyone else…the cool thing about the campsite had a HUGE bear box! we fit all our stuff in there and had room!  only pitfall of the site were the mosquitos…but we were all covered up… except they got our hands and faces… haha… i tried the dogs’ insect repellent… it smelled good but didn’t work that well… oh well…

  afterwards we all crashed and woke up to make some yummy din din………and then crashed again…

  Ruby Lake
  the next morning we drove up to the trailhead for little lakes
  valley… and headed up to our hike to ruby lake…and AWESOME views of
  the valley lakes…
  

  
  break time!

  
  made it to a small pond… and then hiked up some more to ruby lake!

  it was pretty awesome to see the lake with the snow and ice on it… we definitely were there for awhile… lunch… then just hanging out by the lake… and ummm… some of us fell asleep…..

  

  had a nice hike back down as well… more pretty views of little lakes valley….

  
  taking a break and trying to get comfortable…

  
  lake near our campsite…i think it was rock creek lake…

  
  
  really cute doggies in tent pix

  for dinner we had the costco marinated steak, corn on the cob, salad, and garlic bread…. YUM!   oh yeah… and then red vines (NOT twizzlers) for dessert!

  
  grub time! and warm fire…mmmm

  Devils Postpile and Rainbow Falls
  Thanks to the book Sheila got us…we decided to head north to check out devils postpile and rainbow falls nearby…. we drove through mammoth… and today was the last day of the ski season… as you can see.. not much…but people going boarding in shorts and stuff…

  

  we finally made it to the entrance of the national monument, but there was a traffic jam… we had to wait for two tourist buses headed on their way back up…. that was about a 20 minute wait so it was a good banana bread break…finally drove down… parked and made our way to devils postpile…

  

  
  what the top of the postpile looks like… and what we were staring at during lunch time…

  continued on our hike to rainbow falls…..

  
  sheila crossing a creek with patch… who actually WENT in the water!

     
  the san joaquin river…what’s left of the forest from a fire…pat and the backside of mammoth mountain

  and FINALLY… RAINBOW FALLS….

  

  decided to check out the lower part… walked down some pretty steep stairs and steep stepped trail after… but made it!

  

  
  a different view of the postpile coming back…

  
  the minarets

  then continued the drive home….. through yosemite…

  
  lembert dome and toulumne meadows
  
  tenaya lake and half dome from olmsted point

  didn’t make it home until 1130ish… but it was well worth it… two super awesome hikes for the nice long weekend! hooray for the eastern sierras!

  • 2:11 am
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