The Rush Creek Trailhead is one of the northern most entry points into the Ansel Adams Wilderness, which makes it appealing if one lives in the SF Bay Area. It is also clogged up with Edison Power infrastructure: dams, a mini railway... ugh. Nevertheless, if you can just hold your nose for an hour or so, this quickly fades into irrelevance (and beauty).
We took the first left fork up to Clarks Lakes and Spooky Meadow.
(above) The crew, waking up in upper Spooky Meadow. Spooky Meadow is a beautiful hanging valley, but you can't really tell from the photo. You just have to realize that it drops off a few thousand feet at the far end of the picture.
(above) Jeremy predicted that within minutes of setting up camp, Whiskey would tear around in circles, then roll about in the grass for a while. This is exactly what happened.
(above) Alexandra on the prowl for trout. We saw many, and I even hooked one - for about a second until it unhooked itself (no, really! And it was like a ten pounder, too!).
(above) Throwing rocks into Whiskey Pond (a little, previously un-named lake just west of Clarks Lakes). We had a brisk swim, and so did Whiskey.
(above) Alexandra and I had to hike out early Friday morning so we could get back to Berkeley to pick up our wine grapes. I was up before my alarm, and caught some alpenglow on Mount Ritter and Banner Peak. Some day, I'll climb that one.
