Re: Moose Lake

Since these trip reports (or at least those with stuffed chickens in them) seem to be popular, here's a quick writeup and some pictures from a trip that was about a month ago to Moose Lake in Sequoia NP. We did this trip as an overnighter, starting and ending at Wolverton. The first day we went to Moose via Alta Meadow; we returned the next day via Pear Lake and the Watchtower Trail. Although the official trail peters out in Alta Meadow, an abandoned trail continues from the southeast side of Alta Meadow to the south shore of Moose Lake. It's difficult to follow through the meadow itself and at the climb to the top of the SE spur of "Winter Alta" (peak 11328), but it's extensively ducked from where it crosses this spur to the south shore of Moose. We circled east to good campsites near the outlet; another group behind us circled west and camped on the western peninsula.

To return via Pear Lake, we climbed to the ridge NW of the small tarn north of Moose, descended to the three lakes west of this ridge (crossing between them), then descended a gully to the small meadow E of Pear's outlet. In this section is an often-photographed lone dead tree that serves as a kind of route marker. From here, a use trail (I've seen it called the "green path" in other writeups) follows a grassy slot to the slabs above Pear, which can be easily downclimbed. From Pear back to the car is a quick tour of three heavily-used lakes and their backcountry toilets.

We saw more people in the Lodgepole food court/store complex than on the entire loop above, including the day hikers doing the Watchtower Trail.

Moose Lake Pictures

Very nice. Thanks!

Please keep them coming too.

Nice pics! I love that area. Lots of wildlife around Alta Meadow. I need to get out to Moose this year, maybe even Big Bird.

Thanks for the pics. Very much appreciated.

Looks like a great trip. Be careful using polarizing filters at high altitudes and with wide angle lenses. At high altitudes they can turn the sky nearly black and with wide angle lenses you can get an uneven sky because a polarizing filter works at an angle that is 90 degrees off axis to the sun, as you move away from that angle, the intensity lessens. A wide angle lens can capture enough sky that part of it is polarized and part of it is not.

Yep, good point about the polarizer... I didn't spend a lot of time adjusting or sorting these pictures--just wanted to toss them up there. I also generally shoot with one lens (17-45mm) and don't fiddle with removing the polarizer while hiking...