Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Immediately following the trip into the Desolation Wilderness chronicled in my last 2 photo posts, I met up with friends Gretchen and Mark and we headed up the trail for 7 nights in the Sierra high country, on the North Lake to South Lake loop, an absolute classic of John Muir's Range of Light. Weather forecasts were iffy, to say the least, and our night-before spent at a campground at 9000' seemed to suggest a need to be prepared. High winds made it a restless night, and we responded by packing extra clothes, pretty much all of which did get used, though the weather didn't get as ugly as feared. Day 1  began with my daughter helping us set up our shuttle, since we'd be ending our hike a few miles from where we began it. We hit the trail for Paiute Pass about 9:40, hoping to make it over the pass. At 11,200' it was an ambitious goal for the first day, given that less than 48 hours earlier Gretchen and Mark had been at sea level. The hike started at about 9300', ...

I don't seem to be doing too well at blog posts just now--I don't have any books to review (I don't do a lot of thoughtful reading while hiking and traveling, and I've been sick and/or busy since getting home), so I guess I'm down to my weekly photo posts!  I'm making good progress through the pictures from my back-to-back trips into California's Sierra Nevada mountains, so we'll start today with the backpacking trip into the Desolation Wilderness.  I drove down to CA the last week of August, to collect my daughter and a friend for a 3-night backpack into the Desolation Wilderness (west of Lake Tahoe). This would be the friend's first backpacking trip. I'm referring to the girls as K and L, to preserve their privacy.  We started from the Twin Lakes TH at Wrights Lake a bit after noon, having waited out a rainstorm that actually ended as forecast. Inlet stream for Wrights Lake We meandered along the flats for a time, then climbed rather quickly to...

I'm back! I finished my CA adventures (about 1400 new photos to sort and edit) and have finished editing the August kayak photos. My previous reports on our trip with Kingfisher Expeditions are here and here . I take up the story with Day 4, after our night at Cedar Camp. We left off at bedtime with this view.   In the morning, the view had changed a little. Morning mists and low tide. Dead calm mornings made for good reflections. We paddled through the middle of the day, about 7 1/2 miles. At first it was misty. When crossing the larger passages, we tried to bunch up, side by side by side to be visible to any power boats going through. Most were courteous. Eventually the mists cleared, as we neared the Fox islet group, where we'd camp for our final 2 nights. Look closely for the bald eagle. Great hilarity ensued when our guide told us to head for "the bird-covered rock," and most of us heard, "the fir-covered rock." Since every bit of land we could see was...