After yesterday’s realization that I could maybe ski the rockbound Crystal Range in a day, I decided to experiment with approaching more directly via Meeks Creek. But the coverage going up the more rugged Meeks was so inadequate that I decided to return by the easier route following General Creek. The result being the only time I’ve looped Meeks and General Creeks via Rockbound Valley (because I had no bike to retrieve, as I do in the summer, riding the first five miles up General Creek).
A thousand feet down into Rockbound, here at 6800′, I ran out of snow. My skis are visible at right, where I parked them to visit the lovely little cascade below, marked by the single stone cairn skylined at left. But I think maybe there is continuous snow to the canyon floor a little further south? So progress is being made, the carrot still dangles.
We call this spot the Grotto, for the chamber contained in the deep shadow, where verdant moss carpets surfaces and water spills down the interior sloping slabs in a curtain, a cool respite from the blazing sun in the summer heat. I’d never seen this ephemeral snowmelt creek flowing so nicely as this though, and was delighted to be here now, though the scramble down the rocks in my plastic ski boots was a bit dicey.
The creeklet flows picturesquely out this rockbound channel, at the foot of this Juniper, before turning and spilling out across the slab below.
This precarious Jeffery Pine too, seems to gesticulate with sheer joy, to be alive in such a waterful world.
It is so gratifying visiting old friends here in the wintertime. My wife and I have camped in this high grove many times.
Hortence B. Juniperus, Queen of all she surveys, including the PCT that marches by not thirty feet away.
Striped Crag and snowy knolls, where I rejoin my tracks from yesterday, with ample time for my return trip home, so there’s still a chance I can pull this Crystal Range caper off.
Because I hadn’t planned to come back this way, when I got home it was locked and my key was in my truck at Meeks. So I got a homebrew draft from the shed and jumped in the hot tub to wait for my wife to get home, scheming on ski possibilities, and obligations.
Halfway home, I found this likely coyote pup’s tail at the base of a familar glacial erratic. There was an adult coyote track nearby, and a bit of fur and raven tracks on top of the boulder, suggesting drama. It’s always thrilling to get even a furtive glimpse into the inscrutable everyday inner life of this wild place.