I did consider boating Elizabeth Lake (of course...), but the sun had already set, and I needed to get out of the Unicorn Creek drainage to camp legally, so I pressed on towards Nelson Lake after filling up with water. There was a strong breeze during the evening, and over Johnson Peak the sun set some clouds on fire, if only for a few minutes.
I would see the moon rise three times this evening; the first was mid-way to the crest.
Near the crest I heard from the advance party on radio. The wind was blowing strong through the narrow notch at the pass--not conducive to a good night's sleep. So, I decided to push on towards Nelson Lake guided by my headlamp.
The use trail to Nelson wasn't too hard to follow in the dark (the moon had not risen enough yet to illuminate the canyon floor), but I had hiked it before. Someone not familiar with the trail could easily lose it in a few places where it turns abruptly or crosses open granite. The final 1/2 mile or so to the lake was made more difficult because I was hiking directly into the full moon, which was bright enough to ruin any dark adaptation I had. My feeble headlamp was no match for the moon.
When I reached the advance party, they were standing outside watching the moon, circled by a moonbow, rise over "Choo-choo Ridge".
After watching the moonrise for a bit, I got ready for bed and joined them in the tent. They had chosen a well-protected campsite, and I slept well that night.
Unfortunately the pink one had to leave early in the morning, but I had brought some breakfast goodies (huevos rancheros, more or less, and bacon), so he stayed until breakfast was done. The advance party had of course boated both Elizabeth and Nelson Lakes the previous day; the former had been particularly windy. I boated Nelson while JKW finished packing; the pink bird went on to boat Reymann Lake before returning to the trailhead via an alternate route--of course.
After checking off Nelson, we were on our way to boat Reymann. The climb to this lake was quite nice, with good views towards Starr King and Clouds Rest.
The wind was picking up again, but it helped push us across Reymann, towards the saddle between it and Rafferty Creek.
From the saddle we could see that some clouds were forming, but the wind seemed to be keeping them from becoming thunderclouds.
We headed down towards Tuolumne Pass; our next objective was Boothe Lake.
We had lunch at the far end of Boothe; we'd again take advantage of the wind to float, if not almost sail, across the lake.
In places the water was a bit choppy, but nothing our rafts couldn't handle.
After taking out at a nice beach at the head of Boothe, we packed up and headed up to the Vogelsang HSC/Pass trail.
As we climbed towards Vogelsang Lake, dark clouds formed above us.
In the distance, we could once again see familiar landmarks.
Yep, definitely a hack...
We circled around to the inlet of Vogelsang to once again allow the wind to push us across the lake. Multi-lake boating marathons require taking a few shortcuts.
Unfortunately, once we were on Vogelsang Lake, the wind picked up, and as we approached the outlet side, the waves were quite tall--perhaps a foot or so.
We had to paddle along the shore, with the waves rocking us side to side, to find a suitable place to take out.
We had considered camping at Vogelsang Lake, but we wanted to boat a few more lakes this weekend, so we headed back to Fletcher Lake.
Fletcher was rough, but not as bad as Vogelsang had been.
After deflating and packing the boats yet again, we headed up to Townsley Lake.
The wind had picked up a bit, and although we did consider putting in at Townsley, we decided to save that lake for the next day.
Our next mission was to locate a suitable campsite--preferably one with both protection from the wind and a view.
We finally located a side which provided protection from the direction the wind was currently blowing and which had excellent views of Parsons Peak and other more distant summits.
The dark clouds, while threatening, fortunately did not rain on us.
The views were definitely worth the exposure...
...until sometime after sunset, when the wind shifted direction, requiring some re-rigging of the shelter's guy lines. Unlike the previous night, this night was much less restful, at least until a bit after midnight, with strong gusts of wind causing the shelter to flap quite a bit--and occasionally pulling out a stake or guy line.
The winds had fortunately died down a lot during the night, allowing for some restful sleep after midnight. We did nonetheless sleep in a bit, and we were in no rush to have breakfast and pack.
Our goal for Sunday was three more lakes: Townsley was first. The breeze helped a bit in floating across it, but we still had to paddle a bit.
After Townsley our next objective was Hanging Basket Lake, which we'd only seen from the ridge above it. After stashing most of our gear at the head of Townsley, a short talus slog led us to the rock-bound lake.
Unfortunately there was not much room to inflate the boats, so we had to do them one at a time. By the time I was ready to hit the water JKW was almost at the far shore.
Looking back towards the outlet the lake looked perched high above everything.
We returned to Townsley and our gear; after packing it, we headed back to our campsite, then onward towards our final lake: Evelyn.
The wind was not too bad once we hit Evelyn, and before hitting the water we stopped for lunch along its western beach.
For perhaps the first time the entire trip, we had a nice, relaxing float across the lake.
Well, almost... When most of the way across I noticed that, once again, I had sprung a small leak--fortunately, not nearly as bad as the one I got on Thousand Island Lake. The leak was probably from the rocky take-out at Hanging Basket.
After putting the boats away for the final time that day, we headed down Evelyn Lake's now-dry outlet.
The walk down the creek was very pleasant, with nice views from the large meadow partway down it.
In early season there are some nice waterfalls near where Evelyn and Rafferty Creeks merge, but there were only a few stagnant pools of water remaining now.
Instead of rejoining the dry, dusty, and horse-poopy trail, we decided to continue along the opposite side of Rafferty Creek down to the JMT.
This side of Rafferty provides some better views into the granite pools that are along the creek as it drops to the Lyell Fork.
For us the cross-country travel was welcome relief from the dusty trail, but those who are not comfortable with off-trail navigation and routefinding would probably feel more comfortable on the well-marked trail. Once we hit the JMT, we followed this well-traveled trail back to our car.
Despite the wind, it had been a great trip, and perhaps best of all, we were now well ahead of the pink one in the Great Yosemite Boat-a-Thon... at least for now.
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