lambertiana
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2000
- Messages
- 8,433
Some friends talked me into going on a day hike to Franklin Lake in Sequoia NP (yeah, it's hard to convince me). Yesterday morning we braved the Mineral King road, arriving at the trailhead a little after 8 AM. Conditions were clear, temp was around 40. The trail starts at 7800' elevation. As we ascended, we were treated to views of Vandever Mountain:
We took our time exploring along the way; neither of my companions had been there before, and one of them, like me, wanted to explore the geology along the way. For example, a lot of the trail is on the Mineral King roof pendant, with a variety of metamorphic rock - schist, slate, marble, etc - and obvious folding in exposed faces:
We arrived at Franklin Lake (6 miles one way, lake is at 10,330') at about noon. The weather was really nice, sunny and clear, temp was about 45, with a breeze. There was some snow left from a storm that went through a couple weeks ago.
One of my companions usually jumps into any lake that we visit, but, given the very cold water, cool air, and the breeze, he decided to stay dry. We lazed at the lake for a while and had lunch.
Eventually we had to head back down, this is the final view of the lake:
In the bowl below the lake is evidence of the karst in the area. You can see the creek from the lake coming out of the ravine on the left, and another creek coming out of the hillside below where I was standing. The second creek is coming out of the Panorama cave system. Panorama bowl has a creek that drops into a cave, sumps, reappears in another cave, comes back out on the surface, then drops into another cave, to re-emerge where you see it in the picture below. The cave is in black marble.
Halfway back to the trailhead, looking toward Mineral King (the trailhead is by the trees where the canyon takes a 90 degree turn to the left in the distance)
Just before we reached the canyon floor, we passed this small waterfall on Franklin Creek:
I try to get to Franklin Lake every year, it is a hike that I highly recommend.
We took our time exploring along the way; neither of my companions had been there before, and one of them, like me, wanted to explore the geology along the way. For example, a lot of the trail is on the Mineral King roof pendant, with a variety of metamorphic rock - schist, slate, marble, etc - and obvious folding in exposed faces:
We arrived at Franklin Lake (6 miles one way, lake is at 10,330') at about noon. The weather was really nice, sunny and clear, temp was about 45, with a breeze. There was some snow left from a storm that went through a couple weeks ago.
One of my companions usually jumps into any lake that we visit, but, given the very cold water, cool air, and the breeze, he decided to stay dry. We lazed at the lake for a while and had lunch.
Eventually we had to head back down, this is the final view of the lake:
In the bowl below the lake is evidence of the karst in the area. You can see the creek from the lake coming out of the ravine on the left, and another creek coming out of the hillside below where I was standing. The second creek is coming out of the Panorama cave system. Panorama bowl has a creek that drops into a cave, sumps, reappears in another cave, comes back out on the surface, then drops into another cave, to re-emerge where you see it in the picture below. The cave is in black marble.
Halfway back to the trailhead, looking toward Mineral King (the trailhead is by the trees where the canyon takes a 90 degree turn to the left in the distance)
Just before we reached the canyon floor, we passed this small waterfall on Franklin Creek:
I try to get to Franklin Lake every year, it is a hike that I highly recommend.
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