Lake Vernon

The snow is melting, the weather is warming, the trails are becoming easy to traverse and I am a happy little backpacker!

Lake Vernon… what a spectacular place. It’s located north of the Hetch Hetchy Resovoir. You cross the dam and do two or so miles of switch backs to the top and you hike gradually uphill for about 7.6 miles till you reach the glacial lake. It is surrounded by the granite domes rounded perfectly and beautifully by glaciers. You fall asleep listening to the waterfalls crash down their smooth sides (at least this time of year you do).

It was a rainy day when we went but to be out on the trail again after a stressful week of work was amazing. As the season become more busy the more necessary it become to get out and do these treks. It’s the way we recalibrate and prepare for another week. It reminds us of the reason why we are here.

 

It was really foggy both the days we were hiking but it just made everything so much more mystical and amazing. I was waiting for the Ents to emerge from the fog and confront us grumpily.

 

We didn’t stay there nearly as long as we should have. It was too cold and wet to really stay long. But I will be going back when it warms up.

On the way there and back we counted Newts. They are just coming out now that it is warming up. I think we got to around 35 but they are mostly just around Hetch Hetchy, which was looking absolutely magnificent when we were there.

 

So that was my most recent adventure in Yosemite. I loved it. Lake Vernon is definitely a new favorite place of mine and I can’t wait to go back and explore it some more.