Five-ish short months ago...
The hike to Kibbie Lake was uneventful--warm, mostly dry, with just a few areas where the maintenance crews will have to do some cutting.
Where the trail crosses Kibbie Creek, we stayed on the west side and roughly followed the lake's shore. The creek was easily crossable without getting your shoes/feet/boots/flippers wet.
The lake level was a bit lower than our last trip, exposing a bit more of the shore in places.
To escape the mid-day heat, after setting up camp we took a swim in the lake--the water was cool, but not at all cold--and definitely not JKW cold. After the swim, we inflated the floatilla and hit the water.
When I came back from exploring, the Pringles can was empty :-(
We basically just floated and boated around a bit, checked out the far shore and cliffs, and relaxed.
There was a bit of an afternoon breeze, but it lasted only an hour or so--it of course was strongest while paddling against it, then it all but died on the return trip.
It was hot on the open water, so after returning to shore, we swam in the lake again to cool off. After that, it was time for dinner.
The evening was mild, so after dinner (chicken fajitas!), we hit the calm water for an evening boat. The forecast had mentioned a slight chance of showers, but for a change, they were not to be this weekend.
During the third float, a small family of ducklings crossed the lake. (No, I don't know why, ask the
) I tried to keep up with them, but they were quite fast.Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were moderately bad when we returned to camp (we probably should have stayed out on the water longer), but the sunset was nice.
The night had been very mild, as was the calm, warm morning.
After a bit of a feast for breakfast (breakfast burritos!), we hit the mirror-smooth lake for one last boating adventure. The water had been calm enough that the pollen that had fallen on it formed small clumps and splotches.
After shuffling boats around a bit, everyone was successful in reaching the far shore and touching the cliffs.
Supai people: if you do sponsorships or are looking for flat water ambassadors, please PM me :-)
We paddled around the lake a bit more, but we wanted to leave enough time for a bit of non-aquatic adventure.
After deflating the fleet and breaking camp, we headed up cross-country towards Lookout Point. The route was decent by post-fire Kibbie Ridge standards; perhaps not so much for those new to this whole "crawling over logs and swimming through shrubbery" thing.
There were of course a few places with extensive smooth granite--wonderful for camping for those not carrying pack rafts.
Of course no cross-country path in this part of Yosemite would be complete without head-deep shrubbery. This section was fortunately not very long.
We followed open granite for as long as we could, but eventually we entered burnt-out forest. The underbrush wasn't too bad, but there was enough deadfall and random manzanita skeletons to keep things interesting.
There was enough of a breeze to keep us from being too hot--and to keep the bugs mostly under control.
We eventually reached a small ridge before the final push to Lookout Point, which revealed a cloud-free sky all around.
At Lookout Point we had lunch in the shade, then snuck a few peeks at the Flintstone area and Cherry Bomb Gorge before hitting the trail back towards the trailhead.
The hike back to the trailhead was uneventful--the trail is getting to be a bit overgrown in places and there are plenty of downed trees across it.
Overall, a very nice and relaxing trip... Next weekend, not so much.
Postscript: Of course, not everyone understands all the hoopla over boundary marker hunting--I mean, they're on tall metal posts and are surrounded by large piles of rock... how hard can they be to find?
They are also on the Yosemite border, reducing the search space to a single dimension.
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