i climbed a mountain

ok, so maybe i'm exaggerating a little. the ranger did call it a hill. nonetheless, i am proud of myself. we set out today for our own, independent hikes. i for one am a big believer in experiencing wilderness by yourself, though i know that there are also dangers involved. we started off at the twolomne meadow ranger station, and got advice as to which trail to take. he recommended that i take a two mile round trip hike up to gaylor lake, on the easternmost edge of the park. me, i'm thinking, 'well, that's not as long of a hike as i wanted, but it sounds like the views will be neat.' so mum dropped me off. what i failed to note about this 'moderately strenuous' hike, was that it gained 500 feet, and then lost 200, in the matter of a mile. and it started at 9945 feet above sea-level. now, this isn't necessarily a problem, but we just came from the coast.

he also warned me that there would be snow: this time of year this meant that pretty much the whole trail was either under running snow melt, snow itself, or ridiculously muddy. so here i am, panting, shoes covered in mud, trying to climb a trail that was essentially all stairs or switchbacks. and loving every minute of it. i got to the top of the mountain, reaching my maximum elevation of 10,445 feet, and looked down at the valley two hundred feet below me. when the ranger said 'there will be snow up there,' he really meant it. most of the lake and surrounding valley were still covered. i later walked across some of the meadow--most of the snow was still at least 2 feet thick. anyway, i climbed down, and actually hiked to what looks in the picture like the furthest part of the lake. it was absolutely beautiful. snow and mountains all around, creeks and rivers swollen with snow melt, and no one in sight. i found myself an impromptu recliner made of the ground and a rock, and sat down to eat my lunch in the middle of the valley. in about a month, this valley will be brimming with wildflowers and animals, but right then i had it all to myself, with the sunshine and the snow. the view to the west is the one at the top of this post. below is a 360 degree video i took from the middle of the meadow, if you are interested.

meanwhile, my mom was taking a hike to parsons lodge and the soda spring, which is a naturally occuring carbonated spring. the lodge is one of the old historic ones that was built back in the day before the park was really protected at all. she also got some great pictures of twolumne meadow, one of john muir's favorite spots in the park. that's it to the right.

after we were both down with our hikes, we headed back out the eastern end of the park, and back to lee vining, where we spent last night and will spend tonight. we both wanted to find out more about this mysterious lake just next to town, which i mentioned in yesterday's post, so we headed to the mono lake national scenic area visitor center. this is under park service control, and i suppose is somewhere in between a recreational area and a national park. anyway, what we learned was quite interesting! the lake used to be much bigger, but in the 40s they started diverting water for los angeles. soon after, a group of locals got together with environmentalists to save the lake. what's so special about this lake? it is one of the oldest lakes on the continent, features volcanoes, loads of birds, a delicate ecosystem, is saltier than the dead sea, and has a ph of 10, which is really quite alkaline.

we decided to go on a tour of the southern end of the lake, famous because it is the largest occurrence of tufas. now what is a tufa, you ask? it's a petrified spring. and how does that happen? the lake, as i said, is very salty and has lots of carbonate it in, and the water that springs up into the lake has lots of calcium. so, you have water bubbling up with calcium, which mixes with the carbonate, forming calcium carbonate--that's limestone. these little pieces of sediment settle around the spring over time, forming these hollow towers. of course, no one knew they were there until the lake level dropped. quite interesting, and one very, very strange but awesome lake. after that we just went to dinner and turned in for the evening--it had been quite a long day.