We hit the road early so we could get an early start on the trail. Caught a beautiful sunrise half way out.
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Butterflies greeted us as we set out from the Ten Lakes Trailhead.
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North-easterly views along the trail as you start ascending to Halfmoon Meadow.
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At the junction with the trail coming from White Wolf / Lukens Lake.
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Continuing along. Very pleasant day despite the overcast weather. We ran into quite a few weekend crowd folks exiting.
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The GF checking out Halfmoon Meadow. Nice area. The little stream just before Halfmoon Meadow was flowing this past weekend.
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Lots of these guys flitting about in the meadow. They were much more camera shy than the other butterflies pictured above.
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This is at the top, or near the top, of the climb from Halfmoon Meadow to Ten Lakes Pass.
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Whatever sun we had enjoyed earlier was disappearing fast, replaced with cloudy skies. The little tarn up here (not in this shot) still had a good bit of water in it.
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Some big boys looming in the distance.
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GF heading down the trail towards Grant Lakes.
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There's another little trickle crossing the trail on the way down to the Grant Lakes basin.
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Here we are at the lower Grant Lake!
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I wanted to camp at the upper lake since it was off-trail and therefore unlikely to have many, if any, other visitors. So we continued along hoping to find a good site up there quickly since an afternoon thunderstorm was building.
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Looking back over lower Grant area.
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This is upper Grant Lake:
I didn't get many pictures of the upper lake, or much time to explore for that matter, because lightning started striking within 1-6 miles. We decided to bail to the lower lake rather than risk getting zapped up there. So after just checking it out for a little bit, my GF and I headed back down to the lower lake to a nice and protected campsite amongst the trees at the NE corner of the lake. After getting camp set up and chilling for little bit, the storm fizzled out so I rambled around the eastern side of the lake while my GF took a nap.
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The wind was something that night, but my shelter handled it without a problem, especially with the added protection from the surrounding trees. The moon was quite pretty, shining through the trees.
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Day 2 comin soon.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2013 10:23PM by HikingMano.