I hiked to Laurel Lake this past weekend...the weather was generally cloudy due to the incoming upper low, but I only had sprinkles Saturday night and Sunday morning. There were nearby thunderstorms when I got back to Hetch Hetchy, and while driving away on Evergreen Road there was heavy rain and hail.
The flowers were very nice on the entire climb to the ridge-top pond, at the pond and beyond there were very few flowers.
Frog Creek was running full but not flooding. Wapama Falls looked pretty full and the rangers had warning signs out at the dam. From the switchbacks it looked like Rancheria Falls was going pretty well. The reservoir is full, and some water is passing through the spillway on the south side of the dam.
The mosquitoes were fairly bad.
I had a trailside rattlesnake rattle at me on the switchbacks, and saw two bears on the trail a little below the top of the switchbacks.
Edit (forgot swimming): The lake temperature was good for swimming. I was expecting to not like the bottom as the lake is lower elevation and the bottom isn't sand or rock, but in fact the bottom is fairly solid with very little squishy-stuff. Deeper water is some distance from shore but not too bad. All in all, it was a nice swim.
Pictures...
Bear on switchbacks:
Laurel Lake:
Beehive Meadow:
Lupine:
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and Rancheria Falls:
Wapama Falls:
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2016 06:31PM by ttilley.