Hiking into the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness
Saturday we hiked a 7 mile loop trail into the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. This was the driver for our Friday Night Halfway trek to Fresno, a trip we actually only planned on Thursday night. In this case it was just a bit over 36 hours from planning to boots on the trail.
In a sense this is a trip we've been meaning to do for a year. Last August we ventured out to the same trailhead, despite "Road Closed" warnings telling us not to go (I found a different route in), but only hiked some waterfalls near the start of the trail. This time we were game to do the whole loop- complete with almost 1,000' of elevation gain, starting at 8,600'.
The start of the Dinkey Lakes trail drops down to Dinkey Creek, past some unusually striated rocks. The one in the photo above looks like wood, especially with its highly textured ridges. It's all rock, though, and not even petrified wood. It's volcanic rock.
Down at the creek there wasn't much water flowing. When we visited this falls late August last year there was a lot more water flowing. Like, at least 10x as much. And that was later in the season. I figure the difference is last year we had a record snowpack from record rain/snow fall the winter before. This year we finished the rain/snow season around average. And record heat this summer has quickly melted the high-mountain snow we did get.
With the low flow over the falls it's just as well we didn't plan this hike around them. Instead we crossed the creek and began the climb up through the canyon. Not far up we passed into the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. We always love these Forest Service wilderness signs. They're like a welcome mat to our happy place.
The background in the photo by the wilderness sign shows an easy path through the forest. The Dinkey Lakes trail was flat like that in a few places. In others it climbed gently but inexorably uphill. And in a few it was steep. On this part of the loop the steep parts were thankfully few. But climb we did, from 8,600' elevation at the creek crossing to over 9,200' when we reached First Dinkey Lake.
This isn't actually First Dinkey Lake, though it it were you could see how it got the name dinky. It's actually a marsh/overflow area next to the lake. But it's very pretty with the grasses growing in it and the granite mountains beyond.
There's a much bigger lake to come next... and three more after it.
In beauty I walk.
In a sense this is a trip we've been meaning to do for a year. Last August we ventured out to the same trailhead, despite "Road Closed" warnings telling us not to go (I found a different route in), but only hiked some waterfalls near the start of the trail. This time we were game to do the whole loop- complete with almost 1,000' of elevation gain, starting at 8,600'.
The start of the Dinkey Lakes trail drops down to Dinkey Creek, past some unusually striated rocks. The one in the photo above looks like wood, especially with its highly textured ridges. It's all rock, though, and not even petrified wood. It's volcanic rock.
Down at the creek there wasn't much water flowing. When we visited this falls late August last year there was a lot more water flowing. Like, at least 10x as much. And that was later in the season. I figure the difference is last year we had a record snowpack from record rain/snow fall the winter before. This year we finished the rain/snow season around average. And record heat this summer has quickly melted the high-mountain snow we did get.
With the low flow over the falls it's just as well we didn't plan this hike around them. Instead we crossed the creek and began the climb up through the canyon. Not far up we passed into the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. We always love these Forest Service wilderness signs. They're like a welcome mat to our happy place.
The background in the photo by the wilderness sign shows an easy path through the forest. The Dinkey Lakes trail was flat like that in a few places. In others it climbed gently but inexorably uphill. And in a few it was steep. On this part of the loop the steep parts were thankfully few. But climb we did, from 8,600' elevation at the creek crossing to over 9,200' when we reached First Dinkey Lake.
This isn't actually First Dinkey Lake, though it it were you could see how it got the name dinky. It's actually a marsh/overflow area next to the lake. But it's very pretty with the grasses growing in it and the granite mountains beyond.
There's a much bigger lake to come next... and three more after it.
In beauty I walk.