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Hetch Hetchy, July 2004
Day 2
We rose early, hiked back to the junction,
retrieved our bear canisters, and continued climbing until about noon.
As before, the trail was sandy, it was hot, and water was scarce.
After a day and a half we had finally reached our first of two
summits and began our descent to a river that we would follow upstream
for the rest of the day. Upon
reaching the water we quickly found a superb swimming spot where we ate
lunch, followed by another a stop to swim at “Walk Across Lake”,
another dip at “1, 2, 3 Go River”, and finally once more in the
drink at our campsite. In between "Walk Across Lake" and
"1, 2, 3 Go River" we stopped and talked about where we might
camp that night at "Discussion Lake".
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| A breakfast time view of Lake Vernon, elevation 6,564 feet,
on day 2. We left fairly early since we knew we had to
backtrack to the trail junction, retrieve our stashed bear
canisters, and then climb up to
approximately 8,120 feet before we would start heading down to
our next drinking and swimming sources.
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| After many hours of walking we "settled" on this
spot for lunch, a natural rock amphitheatre overlooking a wide
area of the river. The following photo was taken from the
rock island after I swam out with the camera.
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| What an amazing spot, and it only took 1-1/2 days of hiking
to get here! Henrik and Hannah are relaxing after lunch
with the river to the right. This photo was taken from the
rock island in the previous picture.
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| I named this "Walk Across Lake" since
that is exactly what I did, all the way to the rock, sinking in
much up to my ankles with every step. How many more years
will it be until this area becomes "Walk Meadow"?
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| After stopping and talking but not swimming at
"Discussion Lake" we all got wet again at "1, 2,
3 Go River", so named for the contest I instigated to see
who could get in the water first. Here Hannah turns her
back to enforce her "no naked photos" rule. If
you want to see Hannah naked (or Henrik, Casey, or Emily for that
matter), just go on a backpacking trip with her that involves a
lot of swimming. Leaving this spot the trail continued on
a spit of land no more than 10 feet wide with the river to our
right and "Discussion Lake" to our left.
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| Casey and Hannah take a post dinner dip at our final
swimming spot of day 2 was also our campsite. Being very
respectful backpackers, we made sure to locate our site 100 feet
(or 100 yards?) from the water. |
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