Yosemite backpack - Merced River almost to Turner Lake скачать в хорошем качестве

Yosemite backpack - Merced River almost to Turner Lake

Sunday, September 15th - Day 3 Last night was also surprisingly warm. Once again, I don’t think the temperature dipped below 40F, and there was no condensation inside the tent despite the lack of wind. There also wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which was surprising given the weather forecast. After a leisurely breakfast and packing up, we descended the granite slab to the trail. West led to Yosemite Valley while our way, east, led back to Merced Lake. On our way to the lake, we met 3 other backpackers and chatted with one of them. A Polish guy who now lives in the Bay area. All three of them had spent the night in the Merced Lake backpackers’ campground. This is the place where backpackers would stay who planned to eat at the Merced Lake High Sierra Camp that was now closed, of course. We didn’t like the look of this campground. It was buried amongst the trees in a spot set aside from the lake. It looked uninviting, dark, and claustrophobic. It was the complete opposite of where we’d spent the night. I asked the guy if he’d seen any bears around the campsite. No. The campsite had a lot of bear boxes and seemed like the kind of place bears would hang out, hopeful of careless backpackers. Maybe they’d gone into hibernation already. We passed the shuttered Merced Lake High Sierra camp and went on to the Ranger Station. I was just reading a sign stating, “HAZARDOUS STREAM CROSSING AHEAD” when a bear lumbered across the trail in front of me. Then another, and another. Oh my! It was a mother and two cubs. I thought it was two adults and two cubs, but Patsy thought she only saw a mother and two cubs. The adult(s) ignored us, but the cubs stopped to look at us before bounding along to catch up with their mother. If you go down to the woods today You're sure of a big surprise. If you go down to the woods today You'd better go in disguise! For every bear that ever there was Will gather there for certain, Because today's the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic. A mile beyond the Ranger Station, we met a solo backpacker who said he’d been hiking in this area for 50 years and had never seen the water so low. He advised us that the river crossing wasn’t a problem. A few miles later, we reached the broken bridge. Half of the deck had been swept away, but it was easy to cross the river as it wasn’t more than ankle-deep at the best crossing spot. We continued upriver until we reached the junction of the Red Devil and Isberg pass trails. Three young guys were at the junction filtering water. It turned out they had been hiking the YHR and were planning to camp at Turner Lake, the same lake that Patsy and I had planned to camp at. They would beat us to it, and I was afraid there wouldn't be many sheltered campsites, so we decided we’d camp where we were, at the junction. Upon reflection, I figured they must have run out of water because it made no sense for them to filter water at this junction otherwise. The lake was only 30~45 minutes away. This reinforced my concern that there would have been a problem finding water on the YHR. We camped in a sheltered spot amongst the trees near the trail junction. This was clearly not going to be a warm night. It looked as though it was going to either rain or snow overnight.