Ostrander Lake (pics)

I spent the weekend at Ostrander Lake. The original plan was to continue on to Hart Lakes, but it was bloody hot, Ostrander's water temperature passed my 'swimmable' threshold, so I camped and went swimming.

Conditions:

Mosquitoes: They're out in full force.

Swimming: I have reasonable cold water tolerance...by that standard, the water was swimmable. This is probably the earliest I've been swimming in a Sierra lake (previous 'record' was third weekend of June in Lake Tahoe). The thermocline was probably about 4 feet down, to be really good for swimming it needs to drop a couple feet. Treading water - my feet and calves froze. Swimming, floating on my back...I had fun.

A morning view of Ostrander Lake:



Two views of the Clark Range:





A meadow near the trailhead:

Can anyone identify which peaks those are in the Clark range photos?

Thanks for the update tilley - ostrander lake and that meadow look gorgeous. Glad to hear you had a great trip.

The Clark Range photos were taken in the direction of Red Peak/Merced Peak.

Here's the same-ish faux toes annotated ... 2 years ago... same date-ish.. June 10th:




You cannot see Red Peak itself from Horizon Ridge.

Here was that trip:
http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?3,38691,38691#msg-38691

Good luck swim-on in der den Tom


Half Dome fun Out Der

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Wow such a stark contrast in snow levels - those comparison shots are crazy! Looks like I won't have much trouble avoiding snow in those passes.

Pretty cool to see the same scenes in poor versus extreme snow years, thanks.

At least I'm not the only one in this thread who appreciates excellent High Sierra Swimming.

Awesome! Thanks for the report and photos, it looks amazing up there.

Nice! I swam in the first lake at Ten Lakes on Saturday - it was a perfect temperature and far warmer than I would have expected on the first weekend of June. It felt especially great after the hot hike in. Plus it must have stirred up some yummy fish food stuck on the bottom of the lake since last summer - MrC caught limits in about half an hour.