We got up with the sun again today and had our coffee as the sunlight crept toward our camp. Our plan for the day was to climb out of the Lyell Fork by way of Foerster Peak and follow the Yosemite High Route south to Harriet Lake where we’d rejoin the Isberg Pass Trail and hike back to Tuolumne Meadows.
Sunrise over the less-than-impressive Electra Peak.
By the time we were packed up and ready to hike the sun was out and the temperature was quite comfortable. We headed south from our camp and up the gully towards Foerster Peak.
Looking northeast towards Rodgers Peak.
Climbing talus towards the north ridge of Foerster Peak. The travel was not too hard here, just a lot of talus hopping.
Mount Ansel Adams to the east. When we reached the saddle of the ridge north of Foerster Peak, we unloaded our packs of things we wouldn’t need for a couple of hours climbing the peak and set off up the north face of Foerster Peak.
Shannon climbing boulders towards Foerster Peak. The rocks here were very loose. Most of them shifted under our weight but thankfully none of them released and fell down the mountain. Nevertheless it was slow going for a while.
Mount Ansel Adams and Rodgers Peak from the slope of Foerster Peak. A bit of haze was moving in from the fires to the south, but it wasn’t terrible.
Soon, we reached the summit rocks and had a view to the east. It was quite smoky, we could barely make out Mount Ritter just a few miles to our east.
The smoke was definitely getting worse with time. We were basically on the summit, so we headed over and sat for a minute.
Mount Lyell and Rodgers Peak from Foerster Peak.
The Clark Range to the west.
Another Secor entry in the register atop Foerster Peak. We revised our plan and instead decided to head directly for the Isberg Pass Trail from our backpacks and skip Harriet Lake. We only sat for a few minutes before heading back down the tippy rocks of the north face.
Mount Ansel Adams and the Lyell Fork from the slopes of Foerster Peak. We reached our backpacks, stopped for a rest, and reshouldered them and headed for the Isberg Pass Trail. By this point, the smoke was thick enough that we put on N95 masks that we had been carrying.
Foerster Peak to our east through the haze. We were happy to reach the trail just below the unnamed lake along Foerster Creek. We had been hiking entirely cross country for three days and were looking forward to some easier hiking for a while.
Shannon descending to the Lyell Fork. We discussed a plan, at this point our sole focus was getting back to Tuolumne Meadows as we didn’t expect the smoke to clear at all in the next day or so. It was a bit too far to make it back this evening, so we figured we would just take the most direct route back over Vogelsang Pass and get there tomorrow. We would just have to see how far we got today.
Looking back south from near the crossing of the Lyell Fork. The Isberg Pass Trail traverses a bench high above the Merced and would have some impressive views to the west along much of its length. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see much through the smoke, so we just put our heads down and hiked.
We reached Lewis Creek about 30 minutes before dark and started looking for a campsite. The creek is in a bit of a narrow gorge where the Isberg Pass Trail comes in, so we couldn’t see much. As we headed uphill a little bit, I spotted a flat-ish looking campsite across the creek. Sure enough, there were two cleared tent sites and a fire ring with a bench making for a very comfortable campsite. We were now low enough to have a campfire and went ahead and built one, a treat we hadn’t been able to enjoy on any of the previous nights. This made it much more comfortable to sit around and read and do crossword puzzles after dinner. I think we stayed up until nine o’clock before finally turning in.
We weren’t terribly excited about the next day. Our trip was coming to an end and we’d have to hike through the smoke for hours to get back to Tuolumne. But, we had still managed to have several nice days in the mountains, so it wasn’t all bad news.