Communing with John Muir in the Lake Italy basin

My destination for the night was Toe Lake located at the head of the vast basin below at about 11,000 ft. It didn’t look very far from my position at the notch – just a meander down some easy sandy slopes and down a little around the corner.

Toe Lake and Lake Italy beyond from below the sandy slopes and around the corner.

Well, looks can certainly be deceiving! Far too rapidly, the easy sandy slopes turned into steep and loose talus and then steep and slippery tussocky grass with assorted bluffs to block the way. As is inevitable on big climbing days, I was out of water and the lakes below taunted me as I slid down gullies and backtracked up around those blasted cliffs. 

It was late afternoon by the time I reached a decent looking spot to camp by the lake, which was apparently deserted. In fact, there was no sign at all of humans visiting – no footprints, no obvious campsites. My only neighbours left some tracks in the mud by the lake….

Hand-sized prints of neighbours in the 'hood. Maybe a mountain lion? 

First thing on the agenda: filter water and drink, drink, drink. The lake was shallow with many flat rocks scattered across it. In between the rocks were pools of warm, clear water. The decision was easy.  I shucked my clothes and jumped in.  Then basked like a lizard in the sun on a white granite rock. How long had it been since I’d gone skinny-dipping in a mountain lake? Far too long! Ah, the simple joys….

I felt like this - but probably didn't look the part!

I set up camp, pitching Al’s ultralight shelter more for shade than anything else. A quick nap, a couple of chapters of my book, some dinner, a few games of Solitaire and a view of the endlessly fascinating play of light at sunset over the surrounding peaks. The basin was surrounded by soaring rocky peaks including those of the Sierra divide to the east, a tremendous wall with the lowest point being the Bear Creek Spire descent notch at about 13,000 ft.

There is a reason that the Sierra Nevada was termed ‘The Range of Light’ by John Muir, the naturalist and conservationist who explored the area 150 years ago; the peaks ignited into fiery orange. As John Muir wrote:

“Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of Light."

I hesitate to describe the scene as ‘awesome’ as that is such an overused term, but the view truly was awesome in the original sense of the word: awe-inspiring. As the sun went down, so did the temperature – precipitously – so I was happy to crawl into the sleeping bag for the night underneath the Milky Way. In the morning, I was treated to another show of light at dawn with stunning reflections in the pools of water. Perhaps John Muir had once witnessed the same glory, alone in this remote valley.

"How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! To behold this alone is worth the pains of any excursion a thousand times over. The highest peaks burned like islands in a sea of liquid shade. Then the lower peaks and spires caught the glow, and long lances of light, streaming through many a notch and pass, fell thick on the frozen meadows." – John Muir