Friday, November 25, 2011

Reflections at Conness Glacier (The Falls)

After a little more elevation I came across this one that had been excavated by miners at some point in the past. It is not too obvious coming up from the area I came, but I was looking out for it since it was brought up in that Huell Howser episode. In the episode they mention the miners were either after tungsten or gold.
Most of the elevation to this hike is in this section. Keep in mind this is not a major elevation hike compared to most of the mountain hikes around here. You start at around the 10, 000 ft. level near the dam, but we are only talking about 500 ft. to get you to the 10, 500 ft. range at Conness Lake. The main falls of the area are just across the way there. Mt. Conness is to the upper right side of the picture.I got a little closer to the falls.
Up until this point I had an easy time of things. Then I saw this ahead. I was wondering if I would have to turn around from here which would have been a major bummer. I was thinking, "Oh man! I am going to have to come back at another time. I should have waited another month."
The major concern on something like this is not necessarily going up on the snow/ice, which is still a concern, but what happens back down this way. All it would take is the sun melting some of the snow which would make it a lot more slippery, and it could be a really bad situation.

It turns out the only bad part was a section at the beginning of that snow patch. I almost slipped, but I was thinking that it would be a lot worse coming back down over that part. I will have to explain what I did coming down at the end of this series, but for now I just want to note that after climbing this snow patch to where I wanted to go to, the hike was basically over. It was time to just reflect on life, nature, and any other thing that would reflect. ;)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Youtube Version)

Reflections at Conness Glacier (Vimeo Version)