As we descended the non-maintained trail from Monarch, this was our view of Sawtooth Peak. If you aren’t familiar with it, the view here might help you.

Michael referred to this as the “moonscape”.

“. . .miles to go before I sleep.”

Nice light, eh?

Sometimes we lost the trail because we were avoiding stuff like this.

When I told Michael to look at the way these spires were lit, he said, “I’ll fall over if I look up!”. Speaking of falling, I did fall a couple of times. This is the first time in my memory that my knees and ankles just spontaneously buckled.

In the summer, we rarely choose to use the Sawtooth/Timber Gap trail. It is steep, hot, and dusty. On our trip down from Monarch, it was the most welcoming and comfortable part of the day. Because of freeze-thaw, the trail bed was a little spongy and not dusty at all. It wasn’t steep compared to the rest of the hike, and such a nice flat place to put one’s feet! Good thing, because we were on the edge of running out of daylight and needed to pick up the pace.

Michael took this photo of Empire and Sawtooth Pass while shouting at me to hurry up in the outhouse. I did hurry, but not soon enough to run down the icy slick road for a better view of the entire peak. It was truly this red, and only lasted about 1 minute.

Dang. That was a hard day. Michael asked me what the best part was, and I said “the sunset”.

Yesterday I left you with the information that I am married to an animal. He went to within view of Monarch Lake, and then returned to me for the camera, which I gladly handed over, then resumed my semi-comatose state of gathering strength in the sunshine for the “walk” down.

Can you see the lake? It is beneath the peak sometimes referred to as “Sawtooth’s Shadow”. I think the real name is Mineral Peak. Anyone know for sure what this guy is called?

Here is the left side zoomed in.

And the right side.

And the view out to the Coast Range.

Did you know there is a sorry excuse for an outhouse at Monarch Lake?

See the 2 foxtail pines? They were just “right there”, but might as well have been in Rome for all my ability to reach them. You can see the shelf where the lake is just behind them. I didn’t care.

To be continued. . .

On January 2, Michael and I drove to Mineral King. That is weird for this far into the snow season. The drive up was seasonless – is this late October? early May? Then we walked to Monarch Lake on a mostly dry trail. That is immensely weird.

Okay, I lied a little bit. Michael went to Monarch Lake. I climbed and struggled and finally say “I’m done”.

You can see the lack of snow, but what was there was glistening on Farewell Gap at 9 a.m.

We chose the old trail beneath the spires of Empire. It isn’t maintained, sometimes isn’t visible, is overgrown, disappears under rockslides, splits into multiple choice, but eventually gets you to the destination.

Can you pick out the new trail over there in the ice, snow and shade? That is why we chose the south-facing old trail.

Monarch lake is beneath Sawtooth. Nice “trail”, eh?

As I struggled along, I entertained myself by devising a numerical system to rate walking. #1 is going out to my garage. #10 is “I’m done”. This walk began at a 6-7, which is “this is sort of hard but I can do it and it is even sort of fun”. It became a #8 after about 2-1/2 miles when we were on the non-maintained trail for about a mile. This number is “this is hard and it isn’t fun anymore”. I decided #9 was “this is almost too hard but I can do mind over matter” and that when I hit #10, I’d quit. Gotta save some juice in my legs to get back to the parking lot!

I hit #10 just below the lake. When I emerged from my semi-comatose state, I was able to enjoy the sunshine and this view. I am married to an animal, and he proceeded on toward the lake. He said it was “only 5 more minutes” and I said, “not for me!”

To be continued. . .