Читать книгу Trinity Alps & Vicinity: Including Whiskeytown, Russian Wilderness, and Castle Crags Areas. A Hiking and Backpacking Guide онлайн

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OFF-TRAIL TO MIRROR LAKE

To reach Mirror Lake, you’ll first have to reach the west end of Sapphire Lake by heading 200 yards along a rough trail blasted and picked out of a cliff face on the north side of the lake. Beyond the cliff, the tread disintegrates into several paths that cross a seep and head up through thick brush. At this point you may begin to wonder if a better route climbs over the tumbled granite blocks on the south side of the lake. Either way is difficult, but most scramblers prefer the north side route—some of the blocks on the south side are as big as two-story houses.

On the north side of Sapphire Lake, work your way up to a shelf about 100 feet or more above the surface and push through the brush almost directly west, with traces of a boot-beaten, unmaintained path offering some shaky assurance that you’re on the right route. After about 0.5 mile, the brush thins a tad in a slide area about 300 or 400 yards from the lake, where ducks point north toward a pair of sheer-faced granite knobs. This route is passable, crossing below a waterfall on Mirror Lake’s outlet, and then scrambling around an outcrop and up a tilted ledge and a chimney to the lip of the shelf. However, a safer, although longer, route continues west to the north edge of a giant talus slope above the head of Sapphire Lake and boulder-hops up to the far end of a shelf holding Mirror Lake. Either route is very strenuous, but your first glimpse of exquisite Mirror Lake beyond the ridges of glaciated granite on the shelf will make the climb seem worthwhile.