The 2002 mountain adventure was held at Thousand Island Lake out of

 Agnew Meadows, 10 miles west of Mammoth Lakes. (Click on the picture to enlarge and use back to return here.)  The pack station was Reds Meadow resort.

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GROUP ON THE HIKE OUT        

   CONDITIONING HIKE AND DINNER

    Most of the campers arrived late Wednesday to become conditioned to the 8500 foot elevation.  A hike

was held from Horseshoe Lake to the red cinder cones for a round trip of 5 miles. 

The participants are at left.  The cinder cones

 are shown in the next view.

Rich and Tami hosted a party on Thursday night, but Rob hurt his back and had to cancel for the pack trip. 

Other participants.    

Nicole and Eduardo arrived at 11:00PM.

Sharon's log of the trip contains additional information. Click on the underlined link to see the log.

Locale

The hike was to the vicinity of Thousand Island Lake.   We hiked from Agnew meadows up the River trail  in the bottom of the canyon past the Shadow Lake turnoff to one mile before Thousand Island Lake.  The campsite was by the San Joaquin River in a forested area. (About 3 feet wide at this point.)  Other lakes visited were Clark, Garnet, Emerald, Summit, and Barney lakes.  In back of Thousand Island lake is Mt Banner.  Mt Ritter and the Minarets are in back of Banner.  The return hike was via the High trail across the canyon from the Lakes.  The view of the Minarets, Banner, Ritter, and Shadow lake were spectacular.  This area has a lot of bears so the food had to be protected in a BEAR barrel.  (We saw no bears.  Three Golden Mantled Ground squirrels raided our food when we were not looking.

WEATHER

The conditioning hike on Thursday was held on a windy blustery day.  Awaking on Friday morning, it was noticed that it had rained during the night but not right at 6:30.   We drove to the pack station at Agnew Meadows and it started to rain.   It rained until 3:00PM with only one 20 minute break.   We arrived at 2 PM and had to set up the tents in the rain.  Some people were very cold.  It was a challenge to start a fire, but we had one going by 4:30 PM.  The next day was clear but cool (50 F during day).  Sunday and Monday were progressively warmer, when it was 65 F at noon the last day.  Great hiking weather.  Lots of fish were also caught. 

Hiking in on Friday     

CAMP ACTIVITY 

Hanging food to keep it from the bears, fishing, keeping fire going, sitting, cooking, and pumping water were common activities.  

SCENERY

Mt Banner                  Mt Banner                      Thousand Isalnd Lake      Summit Lake                        Clark Lake                 Shadow Lake, Banner, Ritter    Hiking on way out

Bear barrel        Squirrel                        Gentian                        ????????