Tully Lake/Izaak Walton Lake: Sierra Nevada

Sunrise

View from key hole opening

View of where we would be hiking later in the day. Cotton Lake below.

key hole opening view, sunrise light

hiking cross country

View of Izaak Walton Lake from above

Izaak Walton Lake. Camo and I thought it was Hortense Lake but would later be proven wrong.

Camp for the day/night at Izaak Walton Lake

 Continuation of a trip to the Sierra Nevada in August:

When I woke up early on a summer morning in August in the Sierra Nevada at Tully Lake, the wind had shifted over night, and smoke had filled the valley. I could smell it in my congested nostrils and my eyes felt puffy like softballs. Light was just starting to also enter the mountains, and I realized I had an opportunity to catch some sunrise pics. The first thing I noticed after waking up other than the smoke, was that I felt simply exhausted. Even after scrambling around the granite for 15 minutes taking pictures, I noticed I could not wake up and felt so fatigued. I spotted a keyhole notch up on ridge that looked doable for good pics. It was extremely steep, but not overly dangerous, it was like a steep grassy slide that went right up to the ridge. After scrambling and climbing for half an hour, I made it to the top, once again, absolutely fatigued. The keyhole offered really cool views into the valley behind the ridge, right at sunrise. I didn't stay long. I had another goal in mind- to get back to camp and go back to sleep. An hour later, after a downhill scramble, I was back at camp and fell asleep immediately. 

After waking up later in the morning, Camo and I had breakfast and our plan was to hike cross country to Hortense Lake. After scouting the area yesterday afternoon, I thought I had a good idea where it was. Once Camo and I starting hiking, I was deceived by the number of little lakes in the area and had trouble pinpointing exactly where we were on the map we had. The hiking was easy, and we reached an overlook with a beautiful large lake down below. We thought it was Hortense Lake, but found out later it was actually Izaak Walton Lake. We reached the lake around noon after a short downhill scramble. We were the only ones there at first. Camo went for a swim, I went for one a little later, felt completely re-energized, a Sierra baptism I like to call it. The water temp wasn't too cold. We set up camp on a flat, soft, grassy shoreline, ate lunch, and decided to do some afternoon exploring...