Week 31- Obsidian Limited Entry Area - July 29- August 9, 2024

I'm sure I did other things this week besides take Logan to the Obsidian Limited Entry Area, but I don't remember -- so everything is about our backpacking trip.

THURSDAY - The front porch!!

Dinner at Subway in some little town on the way.

We'd driven there in the truck/camper so we could spend the night and start bright and early in the morning.

FRIDAY

Beautiful, as usual for three-ish miles.

Then we got to the lava.- but it was only 10:30 am so our passage through the lava field was nice.

Logan made friends with some butterflies.  There were orange, yellow, and blue ones everywhere along the way.

Made it to the little valley where we had to cross  Glacier Creek.

Now - just a very steep mile left  to get to Sunshine Meadow - we called it the Mile from Hell.  The trail to our campsite.

Home Sweet Campsite!

Logan slept well!

SATURDAY - today we spent the whole day hiking to The Edge of Perfection which is the location of Arrowhead Lake (really a pond).

The cliff in the background is our destination.

Walking alongside Glacier Creek when it is a mountainside "Race".

We crossed the creek and kept hiking up the mountain.  See the snow in the photo.  That is where we bear right and go up the side of the cliff.

A short way on a trace of a trail, and we reached Arrowhead Lake (Pond).

Here's The Edge of Perfection - note the white parched trees on the right.  You can see these in photos which I took the next day when we were at the bottom of the cliff.  I spread my Dad's ashes here 2 years ago.

Great views.  Great tree.

Big bug.

Sadly, the afternoon passed, and we needed to head back to our campsite.  Down the seep gravel cliffside.

...and through the valley, and back to our campsite.

SATURDAY - the plan for the day was to hike across the obsidian fields to Obsidian Falls, and then the "long" way (as opposed to the short way on the Mile from Hell) back to the parked truck.

This photo is from the PCT where the "Climbers Trail" heads up the valley to Arrowhead Lake.

It shows the area we hiked through on Friday....beautimous!!

We're on the PCT now and on the left (to the east) is the cliff where we were yesterday.

At the top of the cliff you can see the white gnarly trees - that's where we were standing.

We're on the Obsidian Plain now, and Logan loved finding more and more pieces of obsidian.

Logan learned what a "tarn" is.

Sisters Spring

The spring has turned into a stream

....to a waterfall

This part of the loop - back to the car - looks a lot like the alpine meadows on the way to Jefferson Park.  But...its way longer and would be three times longer to get to our favorite campsite on the edge of sunrise Meadow......even though the last mile on the Granite Trail is helishly steep.

Lunch

Drive home was uneventful except I took the road to Sweet Home rather than the road to Sublimity.  It was an awful mistake because the Sweet Home road is longer and twisty and awful. Our reward in Sweet Home was the DQ $7.00 meal!!

The cats were excited that I returned home.