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

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Continue up the next set of switchbacks over broken granite covered with a mat of huckleberry oak, manzanita, ceanothus, and scrubby Oregon oak. About 0.5 mile from the water stop, you climb very steeply onto some granite knobs, where you can hear, but not yet see, a waterfall. Another 0.3 mile through brush and over rocks leads you to the foot of the ledge from which the creek falls, 50 yards from the trail and almost impossible to reach. Some very steep zigzags up through more rocks at the east end of the ledge lead to the top of a knob, where you can see into the cirque above Alpine Lake.

An almost level traverse across the top of the canyon takes you west through some tiny, flowery meadows to a crossing of Alpine Lake’s outlet, just below a cascade over a rock dike. Instead of climbing directly up the faint track beside this cascade, look for the trail along the base of the dike and walk 50 yards south before switchbacking over the top. Beyond the dike you reach the lower end of a beautiful green valley a little less than 0.25 mile long and about half as wide. The creek meanders in a wide still channel through lush, marshy grasses and sedges dotted with wildflowers. Little brook trout flick a series of interlocking rings that fracture the reflections of a few huge granite boulders deposited by ancient glaciers. The trail runs up the south side of the valley for almost 300 yards, then turns and crosses the creek to continue through the grass on the north side and over a low moraine to the lower end of the lake. Be sure to cross the creek, as the trail that continues up the south side of the valley leads to some vertical rock faces that block your access to the lake.