Convict Lake/Canyon

10/27/08
After four free nights camping on Obsidian Hill, I treated myself to the $18 campground at Convict Lake. Hartley Campground had gone really well - I was the only one on the whole flat for three of those nights and the quietness was sweet. But I wanted a real home, a place I could stay and relax in private without fear of being chased out. Convict Lake is only a couple of paved miles in from the highway and I had passed by it my first time through this way. I was very happy I made it this time.

The lake is a spectacular scene, and the campground has as good a view as any I'd had. Rising directly across the lake from the campground looms Laurel Mountain (11,812’), one of the most remarkable looking mountain faces I’ve ever seen.

Laurel Mountain/Sevehah Cliff

Walk a quarter way around the lake and looming there is Mount Morrison (12,286’), another significant piece of work.

This is not the granite so pervasive in the Sierra. This is a different geology altogether. These mountains are made of rock that was in place before the magma intrusion that would eventually solidify into the Sierra batholith, that enoromous block of granite that comprises so much of the Sierra Nevada. The fantastic twists and distortions of Laurel Peak is apparantly the result of the heat and pressure of this intruding magma. Why this area was so much more dramatically affected than the other prebatholic rock I'd seen around Saddlebag Lake, say, or Dana Peak, is a subject for further study.

Early the next morning I set out for my hike up Convict Canyon. Fishermen already lined the lake's edge. I was impressed by their dedication but not their enthusiasm. In fact they seemed cranky. I attributed this to early morning, but I later learned from one of them that they were participating in a fishing tournament. The lake is stocked with fish, some of which are somehow tagged with marks worth prizes up to thousands of dollars. It’s like Bingo! I realized now that this had been going on all up and down these lakes all summer, and I had had no idea.

Fisherman on Convict Lake

According to my hiking book, the Convict Canyon trail started at the end of the lake, and figuring I could find that easily enough I complacently left the book behind. Then at the end of the lake I saw all kinds of social trails but no actual trail. I tried a few in vain but they all petered out. So getting frustrated and anxious to hike I basically started climbing straight up the basin figuring I'd spot the trail from higher ground. I didn't though, even as I kept climbing higher and higher, and eventually I had to accept the fact that I was not hiking Convict Canyon that day.

What I was doing instead was scrambling up a low peak at the base of the canyon. It was still pretty great, just a lot harder than a normal hike. In some places the scramble became more like rock climbing, right at the outer edge of my minimal rock climbing ability. At one point I had to execute a move and as I did I recognized it was not a move I could undo, that is I was incapable of doing it backwards in order to get back down. I just didn’t know how. I realized a bit too late that by definition I’m in trouble if I have to "execute a move", because I have no moves. Working at the top of my ability like that was pretty exhilarating, and I could appreciate the thrill. But fear is a real component of that thrill and not really a high I wanted to pursue. 

I had to keep going up and find a different way down or I would have been in a lot of trouble. My next hope was that the little peak I had climbed would descend gradually into the canyon but this peak ended instead at some dubious drops. Luckily I found a steep scree slope that I was able to skid down relatively easily (it would have been awful ascending), and soon I was back in the basin following game trails back to the lake, reminding myself of Gary Snyder's crawling routine. It was a rough day but shorter than I'd expected, leaving me a beautiful afternoon to hang around a lake dominated by people there to fish.

As it happened, the noise and lights at Convict Lake Campground the night before had driven me to distraction. So rather than deal with that again I drove the half hour back to "my" campground on Obsidian Hill, where mortality reared its head for the second time that day when in the middle of the night I was awakened by car lights, car doors slamming, loud voices, and then a steady succession of shotgun blasts, here in an unsupervised and technically closed campground in the middle of nowhere. What was I to do? If I got up to flee I would increase my chances of getting random fire and also it would have been a pain in the ass. Do I yell "hey, people are camping here!"? If they're drunk kids they might decide that could just add to the fun. If they're executing renegade gang members it's really a bad move. I concluded that laying down in the dark most reduced the odds of being hit by random fire. So I laid low and hoped they'd go away, and they did. Believe it or not, I fell right back to sleep. I love hiking.

The next day I located the embarrassingly obvious trailhead to Convict Canyon and proceeded on the best canyon I've ever hiked (King's Canyon is really a drive, with overlooks). The heart of its greatness was its rock formations. This was now high high-Indian summer and the October light on the metamorphics of the north wall were spectacular. Yosemite has nothing to touch this, colorwise. The creek crossing reputed to be one of the most treacherous in the Sierra proved pedestrian this late in the season. The creek was running really nicely, freely too, as atop the canyon I could see snow and even ice on the peaks. I even come upon a couple of frozen waterfalls. I scaled a small cliff to get a better look at one and once again ended up clinging and grappling strenuously to avoid a fall. I decided I really did need to cut that stuff out.