The Hunchback

Hike track link

South Lake bird list
Brown Lake bird list
Green Lake bird list
Grunion Plateau

A month ago Bob and I went up to the Grunion Plateau and climbed Peak 12406' for a lovely view of Thunder and Lightening Lake.  Our friend Hikin' Bill was busy and couldn't go with.  When he heard what we'd done he was incredulous as it is one of his favorite hikes. What can we say other than oops.

Bill was available today and he choose the location.  Yep, we were heading back to the Grunion Plateau.  We have always found the area to be rather boring, even though we had a great time last outing.  We put a new twist on today's hike, a ridge we'd seen from 12406' called The Hunchback.  

We thought all the flowers would be finished, but we very happy to discover a spring, summer, and fall floral display as we hiked past Brown and Green Lakes.

An easy cross country walk from the Grunion Plateau brought us to the top of The Hunchback at 12311', and it came complete with a peak register, one of the most interesting we have seen.

On the way back we went over to check out a weather station, which turned out to be a plate boundary observatory station that is part of the Earth Scope Project.  From their website Earth Scope-- EarthScope is an ambitious, multifaceted program to investigate the structure, dynamics, and history of the North American continent.  Who knew such a thing even existed.  

Then over to the high point at 11731', where we found the white hump geocache.  It contained such great stuff as marmot turds.  Yep, I see the hordes rushing out there to take a look at that.  I decided that the draw in front of us looked walk-able and away we went.  And we ran into an abandoned trail.  Hikin' Bill thought it might be part of an old stock trail that he had heard about.  Who knew?  Now we will have to go back and try to find the old stock camp.  So much for it being a boring area.  It is filled with history awaiting exploration.

The willows are already going to seed

The peak register