Gent Family Trips: Long Canyon: South Side

Date:
July 31- Aug 2

Participants:
Michael (Dad), Rebekah, Daniel, Elisabeth, and Hannah; Chris Panza; and Claire Gross.

Long Canyon:
Leaving the trailhead in the early afternoon, we began our lengthy ascent up the Long Canyon. Within a matter of hours the cameras appeared. Long shall those battles be sung. Of heroic deeds in the heights. May they pass as a legacy to our children's children. The Camera Wars of the Trinities, (yep that's four cameras in this shot).

Even with the occasional skirmish, we were able to get to the trailblazing point by mid afternoon. From this point it was "just over that low ridge" to our first camp at Lake Anna. Maybe low ridge was stretching it, seeing as we were at nearly seven thousand feet.

Lake Anna:
Once over the ridge we got our first view of Lake Anna.

After resting and recovering for some time we eventually moved to the far side of the lake. There we rested and admired our new view of the lake, and admired the view in general so long as it did not require movement. Then we ate, rested some more, thought about walking to the far side of the lake, decided against it, and did I mention we rested?

Eventually, a few of us decided that enough was enough, and that we were going to visit the mini peak on the far side of the lake. We got a nice view of shasta from there.

After returning, we convinced everybody that a "brisk walk," in red, to the top of the ridge behind us to see the sunset would be well worth it.

Setting out just a little too early, we spent almost an hour waiting for the sun to set, but it was worth it in the end. The view behind us was nice too.

Billy Be ____ed Lake:
The next morning we left through the lowest pass that we could see and got our first view of Billy Be ____ed. Last time I was there it was ice covered.

Our path led us down over the wall holding the lake in and out the other side, but the Lake was pretty, (cough, understatement) so we stayed for a bit.

Leaving through the far pass, if you could call it that, we skirted the ridge until finding a gap through to Echo Lake. It was pretty steep.

Echo Lake:
Here we got are first view of Echo Lake. And a second, daytime view, of the White Trinities.

Dropping down from the pass almost 500ft, we took a short break before packing lunch and heading up Middle Peak.

Middle and Granite Peaks:
Just below Middle Peak we stopped to get a panoramic of Echo Lake and its surroundings.

Once on the top of the peak it became fairly easy to pick out the various peaks in the White Trinities. Thompson is in the middle, with Sawtooth on the left and Ceasar on the right.

Since it was only early afternoon we continued on down from Middle Peak and up onto Granite Peak. This left us overlooking Clair Engle Lake, no pun intended.

Echo Lake Again:
Back from the day hike we found Echo Lake quite swimmable. And then distracted ourselves with Mau until the sun began to set, at which point we remembered why we liked this lake.

Siligo Meadows:
We had a relativity sleepless night. I hear rain, wind, thunder, and not knowing if you're going to have to hike out of a completely unprotected valley in the middle of the night will do that. But the morning was beautiful. After a short hike over little stonewall gap we dropped into Siligo Meadows.