Carly You’re so Vain

These are the words I was serenading my pup with this morning as we wandered up the trail to Shadow Lake. It was early on in our day of hiking and we both had a ton of energy as we followed the creek slash river up, up, up into the kind of alpine forest that seems unreal in its beauty.

This was our first real day with no time constraints exploring the Agnew Meadows area and I’m so glad we had all day because we cherished every moment of it as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains

I can understand how John Muir spent his life exploring this John Muir Wilderness and all that majestic parts of the eastern sierras. It’s just so stunningly gorgeous in these mountains it makes you want to hike all day always wondering what’s over the next peak and around the next corner.

Carly and I spent eight hours on the trail to Lake Ediza today and I have to say it was one of the most glorious hikes I have ever done in the eastern sierras.

We started out early at just after six a.m.

I was hoping to hike over twelve miles today but not sure if the summer heat would slow me down and have me jumping in the first lake I saw at mile two. ( I did jump in a few lakes today but the first one was eight miles into the hike and situated at 10,000 feet. Was it chilly? Why yes, it was!)

It was such a glorious relaxing yet challenging day climbing up mountains just past Agnew Meadows.

This area near Mammoth Lakes is just overwhelming with tourists during the weekends in the summer time. On Saturday afternoon we tried to find a relaxing patch of lake to relax at near Twin Lakes and Lake Mary and that area was just swarming with traffic and tourists. It’s an area I absolutely love (and apparently weekends in the summer time thousands of other people do too!)

I’m so happy we spent our Sunday off the beaten path far up in the mountains away from the masses of tourists. I did not expect today to be so serene, gloriously gorgeous and peaceful away from the Mammoth Masses!