We headed from White Wolf towards Ten Lakes, leaving the trail at the high point between the Yosemite Creek/Middle Tuolumne drainage. From here, we headed north on easy cross-country through open forest to the saddle immediately south west of Double Rock.
Double Rock was a treat: in many ways un-Yosemite-like; the formation seemed more like something from Arches or Canyonlands. From Double Rock, we really got the sense we were on the brink of a truly grand canyon--a sense you don't quite get from the Pate Valley trail or anywhere around Glen Aulin. If Lake 8752 hadn't been our destination, we would have been tempted to stop here for the day--we did scout around a bit for sources of water...
From Double Rock we headed NW to a delightful small meadow which abruptly ended at the brink of the GCT; a veritable hanging garden. Its small stream was still flowing, and the flowers were still in bloom. On the small ridge NW of this garden was a nice open sandy area that would make a fine campsite, and we considered that it would make a good alternative if Lake 8752 was a bust...
...which, unfortunately, it was. The lake was mostly stagnant, and the ground was rocky with hardly a level spot for a single bivy. The dense trees obscured the views both up and down canyon--which were good if you took the effort to navigate to a suitable spot. If this lake had been more like, say, the tarns on Tuolumne Peak--more granite, fewer trees--it would have been a winner.
It didn't take long to decide that we were camping elsewhere, so we climbed back from the lake. About 100' above the lake, a rattlesnake and I startled each other--somewhat unexpected given the elevation.
We did consider camping at the nice spot NW of the hanging garden, but I think we all had Double Rock in our minds, so we filled up with water and doubled back to Double Rock, which was as spectacular as we had remembered it.
There were few mosquitoes and hardly a breeze, so we had a wonderful dinner and watched the sun set... and the moon rise. Being a full moon, Double Rook took on a different, more ethereal character at night. It was bright enough that headlamps weren't needed to walk around.
The next morning, we packed up and dropped into the headwaters of Morrison Creek. We quickly encounted a surprisingly--for August--lush meadow. Lake 9081 was just a wet spot in the meadow.
The travel down Morrison Creek was mostly easy, the foliage being a bit more dense and lush than Echo Creek had been last weekend. The mosquitoes were thick in a few places, and the sky was a bit overcast, which at least kept the temperatures down. At Lake 8257 we saw an old (?), marginal campsite where someone had felled a tree with a chainsaw years ago. For firewood? But there was plenty of dead-and-down wood all over the place. Another Yosemite mystery... This campsite was the first durable signs of people we had seen since just north of the White Wolf/Ten Lakes trail.
From this lake we left Morrison Creek, contouring to the saddle east of 8356, then dropping down to the Pate Valley trail, where we saw the first people we had seen since near the Lukens Lake junction the previous day.
All in all, despite the primary objective being a bust, it was still a wonderful trip, and Double Rock at least is worth a return.
More Pictures...
(lake wouldn't be that great... but the views would be)
