Wright Mountain, Snow Lake & Gem Lake — Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019

Started hiking at 4:15am. Ate breakfast at Snow Lake and watched the foggy sunrise starting at 5:30am, trying to capture pictures (got a bunch of noir-looking shots). Got to Gem Lake at 7am. Considered Wildcat Lakes, but after looking at the map and my watch, I realized I needed to save it for another day, so I went back and started climbing Wright Mountain.

The mountain is a good class 1/2 scramble. I didn’t bring anything gear wise out of the ordinary (just my boots and poles). Got up to the top around 7:45am and parked my butt for an hour and watched the blue sky and clouds roll by.

I leisurely started back down, picking up garbage on the way down (mostly tissues, dog poop bags). Talked with a lot of folks (many were hoping to stay overnight either at Gem Lake or Snow Lake). Cleaned up the day use area by the lake (so much food waste—eggshells and banana peels don’t belong in the forest!!), and cleaned up the west-most wilderness toilet area (folks: tissues belong in the wilderness toilet, not outside of it!!!).

Hit the mother lode of all poop bag depositors on the way down. I counted about 15 poop bags in total.

Everyone on the trail was awesome for the most part (only 1 group had a dog off-leash).

Random Tidbits:

• Saw a really awesome bear hang this morning on my way to Gem Lake. Kudos to the folks that did that!
• Supposedly there was a black bear in the area, but I didn’t spot any.
• There were lots of ripe blueberries to be found — just not along the Snow Lake Trail proper.
• There was some soft dog poop right on the trail 1/4 mile from Gem Lake on some rocks. Watch your step!