by ODS » Mon Oct 08, 2018 11:33 am
BVL to LMPL x-country was fun and a time saver.
Didn't make it to Buena Vista Lake the first night due to rain/wind/hail, that we waited out huddled on the stoop of the Ostrander Ski Hut. So we set up camp there after the weather improved and stayed there the first night.
A very wet morning lead to more time letting things dry out, including ourselves, in the much appreciated sunshine of Friday morning. This lead to a later start than expected, and though the route was not altered, or 2nd night camp spot was shifted from Lower Merced Pass Lake to the first Hoover Lakes 8696. Route was fun, really cool talus field crossed around 9160ft from a cluster of ponds on the west to a small pond on the east. The entire section had awesome views of Mt. Starr King and others. It was a long day from Ostrander to here, and we were pretty tired once we finished the last little up and over into the lake, avoiding some of the steeper granite sections. One slight regret was that I sent a bud to scout the other side of the outlet for camping because the western shore only had a few spots. The regret was I should have gone because on the hike out we saw that he walked right around an incredible site just across the outlet with a great fire ring and a pile of firewood waiting, though stage 2 restrictions were in affect, so that wouldn't have mattered, but the area was great and had plenty of room for our 3 tents. (also found a great site at Hart Lake that would be a preferred first night stop over Ostrander if this route was ever used again).
The east side of our Lake looked quite steep in the early evening light, so I had a little worry about our route out the next morning, but I've learned to not worry about that until you need to and enjoy the moment, so we had a great dinner and did our best to stay warm without a fire. Woke up at 5am to the sound of rain on my fly, my shoes were left out to air out, so I scrambled quickly to get my camp shoes on and headlight and go get them out of the rain. When I opened the zipper of my tent fly I was greeted by white snow flakes slowly floating into my face. So it wasn't raining but snowing. This was great, because it pretty much filled our entire trivial pursuit pie full of all the weather pieces for this trip, rain, wind, hail, snow...
Route out in the morning was very easy, in the morning sun the shadows were different and we could see it was not nearly as steep as we thought. Once on the slope it was a piece of cake. The entire way from there to LMPL was all easily passed.
Our plan was to head back on the Illiloutte Creek trail as long as we could until we found a nice spot to camp, leaving about 5 miles back to the mono meadows trailhead and quick hitchhike to our car at Ostrander Lake trailhead. Well, around 3PM with about 9 miles left to the trail head the three of us made a decision to just go for the car and get out versus setting up camp for another possible cold wet night. We cleared 16 miles that day and got to the car at 7:45PM and drove back out to Oakhurst to a much welcomed hot shower, pizza and a cold beer.
Cheers!