Creamsicle and the Beardless Woodsman: Day 8

6.9 miles from Toulumne to Vogelsang; 3.5 miles to Evelyn, Townsly and Hanging Basket lakes

The walk to Vogelsang was just as pretty as any of the others. I never thought I would begin to take this beautiful of scenery for granted, but I’m slightly doing so. It’s not that I’m not appreciating it every step I take and admiring it, I’m just not taking pictures of everything that I usually would take pictures of. Take for a example the ugliest thing I’ve seen in this park (well, the least prettiest, because nothing here is ugly; luckily me coming into the park doesn’t change that ). If I were to see the least prettiest scenery from here in NC, I would be mesmerized and take approximately 348 pictures of it in a 30 second span. But with everything being so dramatic and breathtaking here, my expectations skyrocket. Anyways, Vaughn and I made it to Vogelsang about an hour ahead of everybody else, so we walked to Fletcher lake, which is just right at the back of the camp to goof around. Because of the huge amount of snow this year in Yosemite, it is right at the end of the melting stage right now. That means that the wildflowers are in full bloom!!! So Vaughn and I took a bunch of pictures of all the different flowers around the lake, a good chunk of them being Indian paintbrush. Sadly, the snow melt also means that the mosquitoes are at their peak. When I would stop moving for a picture, it would be fine for about a second or two and then I would suddenly feel my arms being smothered by little sons of…guns. Luckily, I don’t know why, but mosquitoes don’t bite me. They land and swarm on me but I did not get a single bite the whole trip (or the whole summer in Yellowstone). Either I’m livin right or I’m so much of an asshole that you can taste it in my blood, and it doesn’t taste good. I’d like to think it’s a little bit of both. I can imagine that it was pretty funny watching me and Vaughn each stop for about 5 seconds, dead still to take a picture, and then jump and kick and flail and run away as fast as we can to get all the mosquitoes off us. When everybody else got there, Vaughn and I took Maggie and we went on a hike. We hiked up to Evelyn Lake, which was in a huge open meadow. We then went off trail in the direction of the other lakes we wanted to see, Townsly and Hanging Basket. Townsly Lake was amazing, set right at the bottom of two snowy peaks. But we saw a possible indention over the next ridge above Townsly so we went there first. It was a great glacial lake that was still half frozen and surrounded by great peaks. I really really really wanted to swim in it, but then I decided I wanted to live at least until the end of the hike. We then climbed some rocks and found another glacial lake that was half frozen up in the peaks above Townsly. This lake was about as clear as they come. From the edge of it, we also had a great view of Townsly and the mountains in the distance. We hiked back to camp and relaxed until dinner. Michelle and Ms. Creamer were very insistent that I let them buy me meals at the high sierra camps for the last three nights. Eventually, I just gave up saying no and they purchased them for me. So I had a meal tonight, tomorrow (here again) and the next night at Merced Lake. Tonight the meal was salmon with a homemade picante sauce, warm potato salad, gumbo, and banana nut muffin with pecan praline on top for dessert. It was all delicious (at least compared to Kraft mac and cheese and Rice Roni) and hit the spot. We then watched sunset after dinner and headed to bed.

“I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives.”