Yay, Lake Ann!! Or rather, a thawing Lake Ann. The Teanaway is quickly coming back to life and I don't think I have ever been on this trail when there is so much water! The waterfalls were incredible! I've been up there in snow before, but it must have been at the start of winter, when it was dry below and just snowing up high. It was just crazy beautiful. Not as many wildflowers as Navaho Peak yet, but give it a week.
Daisy and I started Wednesday morning, planning on spending one or two nights at Lake Ann. Not having seen a single trip report, I had no idea what to expect. There is still a LOT of snow up high on that side of the Teanaway. I'll break it down a bit.
The first part of the Esmeralda Basin trail is totally doable for anyone with any skill level. There are some snow patches after about 1.8 miles, until you get out of the trees, none of which posed any issue and I don't see how a person could possibly lose the trail.
I turned off where the trail splits to Lake Ann. Shortly thereafter it becomes basically solid, deep snow and you will lose the trail if you don't know where you're going or have route finding skills. The snow was perfect for walking just in my boots, so I didn't put spikes on, and I've been up there so many times I didn't have a problem staying on or very close to the actual trail. I doubt my tracks will still be there in that forested portion with all of the melting coming up the next few days.
Once you gain the ridge that overlooks Lake Ann, solid snow, probably 2ft in places. I went to look over the edge and saw that the lake is still about 70% frozen/snowed over. It was disappointing, but not super surprising. Aside from that, no one had been down to the lake at all this year and I would have to break trail.
Wednesday morning around 10am, wearing my 40lb pack, I headed down to break the trail and set up camp. It was really sketchy. The snow was soft and more powdery, and my ice axe wasn't grabbing onto it very well. I went down probably 20ft and then postholed up to my waist, so decided to come back up and set up camp on top of the ridge. I just wasn't comfortable breaking trail down that steep terrain with all that weight on me when I didn't feel like my axe would hold.
So i climbed out of the hole my leg was stuck in, not an easy task, lol, and we headed back up and set up camp up high. We had some lunch and water and rested awhile.
A couple hours later I decided we would try going down again with just my little day pack and my ice axe. It was perfect. The sun had melted the snow just enough to make it heavy to hold my axe in case I needed to self arrest. I broke trail all the way to the bottom with no problem. I was so happy and Daisy got to swim like the cuckoo dog she is!
We wandered around the lake awhile, played fetch, listened to the marmots, Daisy went swimming, then we headed back up our perfect little trail back to camp to have some dinner because Daisy is ALWAYS hungry.
The sunset was decent, I watched an episode of NCIS on Netflix since I had cell service up there (lame, I know), took my sleep meds and was out in 5 minutes. It was really cold overnight. Daisy doesn't like her sleeping pad so she kept pushing me off mine and I would wake up just laying on snow. Why have a 2 person tent if the 70 lb dog is just going to sleep ON me? It's a good thing she's cute.
This morning we woke up at 5. I made coffee and watched the sunrise, then we went back to sleep until 8. We had to pack up and head out because I didn't bring enough food for myself and apparently that Dominos pinpoint delivery thing is a bit of a misnomer. Disappointing.
I took a lot of pics. I can only post 4 here but the others will be on my Instagram tonight or tomorrow. @pipermarmalade 😘
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