Article October 10, 2011 Issue

Willing to change course?

By Sandra Justad

Our first hike in the Sierras in 2011 didn’t go as planned. 

The very name of our destination, Saucer Lake, at the top of the ridge, way above where we’d been staying in a cabin at Echo Lake, had inspired the awe and anticipation of my 11-year-old grandson, my good friend, Margaret, and me. Margaret had explored these mountains every summer since she was a little girl, so we were in good company. It had been a late summer in the mountains. The hike started well enough, over giant granite boulders, through thick manzanita bushes, across noisy rivulets of snowmelt. Just two weeks before our arrival, Echo Lake still boasted ice. 

As we now ascended to Saucer Lake, bits of snowfields lurked over parts of the trail. At first, we worked around them, picking up the switchback a few yards farther on. Later, we had to walk carefully across the mushy slickness. The inclines were steep, and the snowfields became broader and increasingly treacherous, with significant boulders, and sometimes cliffs, at their bases. 