Backpacking in the Southern Sierras: Wallace Lake to Upper Boyscout Lake

Normal start time under a cloudless skies. We start up the side of the valley, retracing the beginning of the walk to Wales Lake yesterday. It's warmer than expected and the walking is very good. After crossing over to the cool marsh area below the head wall we move to the obvious weak spot and have a really nice talus scramble to the top. Really nice. Up top we do a short break and then move on across the lovely hanging valley that leads to Tulainyo Lake. The valley is pretty long, so this takes a while and anticipation for the lake and the first views of the head wall to the col builds.

The lake is spectacular, like a caldera but filled with water and surrounded by cliffs. There's still ice on the lake and snowfields around the edges. The wall to the col is impressive! It's one of those "if we didn't know it's possible it wouldn't ever cross our minds to try" things. We have a another break surveying the situation and then cross the snowfield to the talus below the col. After some water pumping on the other side of a huge cloud of young mosquitoes we start heading up.

The first 1/2-2/3 is more fun talus, with some bigger bits up top that are somewhat scrambly. Good warm-up for the wall itself. We start near the obvious point in the middle and then just follow a sensible route to the top. It's easy scrambling, intentionally made a bit more challenging at times by route choice, and we're at the top with big smiles on our faces. That was fun! And it's nice to know that it was doable (the alternative would have been complicated and several days long...).

Another break and quick discussion of what to do next. Given that the weather is still perfect, it's pretty clear to both of us that we're going to do the East ridge to Mt Russell - we've read a lot about it and the ridge looks great. We pack stuff into hip packs, set ourselves a sensible turnaround time, and then set off. I could spend multiple pages on the ridge, but I won't. It was really, really good. We spent much of the route out to Russell on the ridge (more exposed and scrambly) and then did the easier lower route to return. The rock was mostly great, the views were fantastic, and the exposure was huge. Again, a really fun scramble.

Back at the packs with even bigger smiles on our faces, we repack and then head down to Upper Boy Scout Lake. The first part of the steep bit here is kind of shitty because there are too many different paths that people have taken (insert ranting from greg here), but after that things consolidate to one path and the descent is pretty easy. The ascent, on the other hand, would suck (you have to earn that nice ridge hike!). We find the turnoff to the lake and descend easily. At the lake we look for camping spots and end up not too far from the other two guys here (the spot we picked is nice). Have a snack (we're learning!), pitch the tent, pump some water and wash a bit, then laze around until dinner time.

The lake and spot are beautiful, but it's damn windy... may be a long night despite the wall we build on the windward side of the tent. Let's see how it goes.

This was a great day with perfect weather. Lots of good scrambling too... just right for us!

Dinner: black bean soup. Tasty!

Track:

Stats: 10.5km, 960m up and down.