We hit the road early so we could get an early start on the trail. Caught a beautiful sunrise half way out.

Butterflies greeted us as we set out from the Ten Lakes Trailhead.

North-easterly views along the trail as you start ascending to Halfmoon Meadow.

At the junction with the trail coming from White Wolf / Lukens Lake.

Continuing along. Very pleasant day despite the overcast weather. We ran into quite a few weekend crowd folks exiting.

The GF checking out Halfmoon Meadow. Nice area. The little stream just before Halfmoon Meadow was flowing this past weekend.


Lots of these guys flitting about in the meadow. They were much more camera shy than the other butterflies pictured above.

This is at the top, or near the top, of the climb from Halfmoon Meadow to Ten Lakes Pass.

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.

Some big boys looming in the distance.

GF heading down the trail towards Grant Lakes.

There's another little trickle crossing the trail on the way down to the Grant Lakes basin.


Here we are at the lower Grant Lake!



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.

Looking back over lower Grant area.

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.

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.

Day 2 comin soon.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2013 10:23PM by HikingMano.