Desolation Wilderness - Pyramid Lake

Dates: June 27-28, 2009 Duration: 2 days, 1 night Mileage: ~?? miles Group Members: Nick McGuire, Michael Ahlmann Pack Weights: Nick (~27 lbs) Contacts: Pacific Ranger District - 7887 Highway 50, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (530)-644-2349 Notes: Single night weekend trip up to the Desolation Wilderness before starting work. Decided to go ultralight since we were just going for one night and the daytime temperatures were supposed to be in the mid-70s and night time lows in the mid-50s. Didn't take sleeping bags, just a tent, sleeping pads and sleeping bag liners. Route Map Available! Outbound Travel: Left Mikes place in Sacramento around 6:25AM and headed for the Pacific Ranger station just east of Pollock Pines. Got there about 20 minutes after 7AM and picked up our wilderness permit and parking pass. Rangers warned that parking lot could be full, that the horsetail falls trail was the hardest in the wilderness area and that there would be a ton of people. (none of which ended up being true at 8AM, even on a Saturday morning when the temperature in the valley was supposed to hit 105+ degrees F)

Day 1: Left the Pyramid Creek trailhead (~6115 ft in elevation) around 8:15AM and followed the path along the creek up to the base of the falls. Climbed the rocky slope up to the top after a decent amount of routefinding. The trail is obvious at the beginning but when the slop just becomes loose boulders its not well marked except for some green and yellow spray-painted arrows you can find every now and then. Reached the top just after 11AM and proceeded North towards Ropi Lake to try and meet up with the primitive trail from Lake of the Woods. Found it after searching for a little while and headed over to Lake of the Woods where we stopped for lunch some time after noon. Skirted north along its western shore before heading West towards the top of Desolation Lake. Crossed a stream there and headed up along the western side of the series of lakes connected by the creek up to American Lake and Channel Lake. Headed West and descended down to Waca Lake which is located in zone 38 where our overnight wilderness permit was for. Spent a long time looking for a campsite but couldn't find any good spot and they one or two we did find weren't 100 ft from water. Scouted North towards Lake Aloha but still no luck finding a site. Decided to head South towards Pyramid Lake and finally found a decent spot along its north-eastern shore that was barely under 100 ft. We decided to go back to Waca and attempt to use a flat rock slab spot we had found earlier instead but just before leaving I decided to check out the grove of trees on the far western shore of the lake where another creek/waterfall come down into the lake. Ended up being promising and we found a nice flat campsite a hundred yards or so from the lake (~8000 ft in elevation). Set up camp, purified water and then went swimming. Lake water was all snow melt and was quite cold but we found a rock to jump in off of so we both jumped several times and swam a little bit. A little before 6PM we setup a kitchen area and made dinner (Pizza!...a little messy but really good and it came out really well on the jetboil). After cleaning up Mike layed down for a bit because of a headache while I went off exploring the waterfall/stream next to us. Ended up following/climbing alongside it up several hundred feet and found some amazing waterfalls, snow tunnels and an absolutely fantastic view. Headed back down to camp a little before dark to report what I'd seen to Mike and insist that we explore the area together further tomorrow. Went to bed a little after dark...still warm and even without sleeping bags (just liners and thermals) we were both comfortable throughout the night. Once we left the Horsetail Falls and Lake of the Woods area we only saw 2 people the rest of the day...Awesome! Day 2: Woke up around 6:30AM and made breakfast after taking down the bear hang. Cleaned up camp a bit and then went off exploring up the creek to where I had been the previous evening took some amazing pictures and got high enough to get a good view of Lake Aloha. Continued following the stream and waterfalls up another couple hundred feet in altitude...wanted to continue all the way to the source somewhere up near Pyramid Peak but time wouldn't permit. Headed back down after standing in my favorite waterfall for some pictures and broke camp around 11AM after a quick lunch. Hiked south along the western shore of Pyramid Lake heading towards Ropi Lake and the others further south of us. Had to traverse West to avoid a large cliff band where the creek leavign Pyramid Lake drops into the valley below. Found an amazing swimming hole we had to stop and swim at just west of Gefo Lake. Skirted between Gefo and Toem Lake before heading east along the bottom of Toem and then Ropi Lake before heading south towards Horsetail Falls. Climbed down the falls path again, following the marked trail (yellow and green spray painted arrows on rocks) for a ways before losing it here and there and just choosing our own route till we met up with the maintained trail at the base. Decent number of people hiking up, especially towards the bottom...a lot of people had come up from the valley to escape the heat and swim in the creek. Reached the parking lot around 2PM.

Home-bound Travel: Left the Pyramid Creek (Twin Bridges) parking lot around 2:20 PM. Parking lot was full at this time with lots of cars parked pseudo-illegally around the edges and center of the lot. Stuck behind some slow cars and at the three ridiculous stoplights in Placerville but made it back to Mikes around 4:45 PM.