Binoculars in the Backcountry: Yosemite Quartz Hill Backpacking Trip

We had a trip planned to visit one of our favorites in Yosemite, then we couldn't get a permit for it. Oh bother. What to do? Go somewhere else of course. So, I pulled out the map and said, well we haven't been to Grant Lakes, and there are permits for the Ten Lakes Basin, so let's go there. Bob was less than unenthusiastic. And I guess I rather felt the same way. We had been to the Ten Lakes Basin with friends many, many moons ago as a death march day trip. The Ten Lakes Basin is billed as the quintessential Yosemite high country trip. We were underwhelmed. The best any of us could muster was meh. We vowed not to go back. Now we were heading to the area.

As I was looking for other lakes in the vicinity that I hadn't bagged yet, I saw that this same area had Wegner Lake. That's another one not worth repeating. We went with Hikin' Bill. It was a day of climbing over and under down trees while being eaten alive by mosquitoes. And our reward at the end of the day, was a forgettable pond with even more mosquitoes.

My enthusiasm was waning when I noticed the ponds and small lakes under the west face of Mt Hoffman that I have been dying to go to. How much dying you might ask? Well, I have proposed a route up a granite head wall and I think I have convinced myself that we can get up. Bob is convinced it is beyond my Spiderman abilities. We have not attempted it. It doesn't look as bad as Half Dome, but then again, there are no cables.

Now I have my chance. I will get to see my ponds. Yippee! And how was it? Stunningly, amazingly beautiful, and of course a complete cross country death march to access. And how was Grant Lake? No idea, we still haven't been.

ebird list

Evidence of the power of water.

On day two we headed over to another pond which we planned to tick, and then head off to our objective for the day and our kick off point for a cross country adventure over to Grant Lakes. Our first pond was so lovely that we set up camp. Bob suggested it and it was a great suggestion. We then made our way down to the pond/lake that was the whole objective of the trip. It was not trivial. We even thought a time or two that we were cliffed out. Once there we examined our canyon. On the map it looked so gradual, on the ground it looked like a series of marshy flat areas interspersed with cliffs. We decided to enjoy our primo camp spot and forget about Grant Lakes, at least for now. Near our camp was an awesome geological feature - a quartz intrusion in the surrounding granite that was glacier carved and eroded into a lovely white dome. We have never seen anything like it in the area, and we have been to many places in Yosemite.