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Sierra High Camps - Five Lakes in Five days

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Introduction After too many years to remember, we won the Yosemite High Camps lottery.  Having been closed since 2019, the NPS opened the camps, or at least some of them, this summer.  We were given Tuolumne, May lake, and Sunrise - a three day loop instead of the six days in the before times.  Not wanting to miss the opportunity, we signed up, shifting our planned pilgrimage in Norway by a couple of weeks to make room. As it takes me a while to acclimatize to the high elevation, we booked an extra day at the Tuolumne Lodge before our official hikes started. Five Hikes in Five Days Dog Lake We reached the Tuolumne Lodge, a grouping of canvas tent-cabins on concrete slabs near the Tuolumne river, just before noon, having transited the Yosemite park entry kiosk with almost no wait.  Since checkin wasn't until 4:00pm, we walked the short distance to the Dog Lake trailhead to begin our acclimatization, stopping to unload our food and toiletries, as required, in one of th...
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Not to miss in New Mexico

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In the end of May, 2019, Mary and I did a road-trip through New Mexico . This post points out a few of the stops we would recommend, and will likely revisit on our next NM road trip, in arbitrary order, for our future selves. In Santa Fe , the old court house , now a museum, has some lovely 100ish year old murals that are worth a visit.  These two still resonate with me. When visiting Bandelier National Monument , at the time (and probably still) we were required to take the bus to the entrance. We discovered it's much better to get off the bus a couple of stops early, at the top of the canyon, and walk down the trail to the main entrance, having the wonders of the place unfold in front of you. If you are visiting Bandelier , or Chaco Canyon , or any of the other old Pueblo sites, try to get to Taos and take a tour of the Pueblo there.  In pre-columbian times, the Taos pueblo was the farthest outpost of a vast civilisation, perhaps centered at Chaco canyon.  H...
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A Lake a Day

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We spent last week in the Eastern Sierras, based in Mammoth Lakes, hiking to at least one alpine lake each day. Dog Lake On the drive to Mammoth we stopped in Yosemite, just past Tuolumne and did a short hike to Dog Lake to stretch our legs. Even though it was less than 4 miles round trip, at 9200' elevation we were huffing and puffing up the slight incline to get there. Dog Lake (August 17) Gem Lake For our first full day in the eastern Sierras, we decided to hike from Mosquito Flat at the end of Redwood Creek Road, to Gem lake at the end of Little Lakes Valley to reprise of a hike did during the early stages of the pandemic. The trailhead is above 10,000' so you spend the entire time in a lovely Sierra Alpine ecosystem, walking (and breathing heavily)  past a series of snowmelt filled alpine lakes: Heart Lake, Mack Lake, Long Lake, Chickenfoot Lake, and finally Gem Lake. Gem Lake (August 18) Four years ago, we walked around Gem lake, hopping over the rock scree to play in the...
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