Trip Report: Convict Creek- Smoky to Clear, Dogs and Fish: Aug. 26-30

[sekihiker]

Hornfels - fine grained metamorphic rocks - mapping a hillside of them above Mono Lake was our second summer field project in 1972.
It would seem like I could share something about them, but the project was not my favorite. We started at an elevation of 10,000 feet and mapped/slid our way down to Lee Vining. I remember very little about the project except that the hornfels were isoclinally folded. That meant I [or anybody else, for that matter] had no idea what order the strata were in. It was a good lesson in just doing the job you were asked to do, even if what you came up with was not very clear.
I do remember coming across what looked like a timber rattlesnake [I'm not sure they are even in range in that area] at the beginning of one of our slides down the mountain. It was not moving and I thought it was dead. The next morning, it was gone. I'm sure glad I didn't put it in my pack.
It looks like it would be fun to map the rocks you saw. They are folded and faulted but you can still unravel their history. With today's technology, you could do a preliminary map on Google Earth and finish up with a field check.
Sorry to interrupt the flow of your report. I had a feeling you weren't quite finished, but I just couldn't stop myself from commenting.
Again, I especially love your dog portraits. I really miss hiking with my partner, Beans. For a six pound Yorkie, she was up for anything. http://www.sierrahiker.com/IndianLakes/beans.html

[windknot]

Thanks for the great report to an area I've never been to. I especially like the composition and lighting of your fine photos. And that's a prodigious amount of brookies caught (and a valiant extra effort to retrieve the last bag, too). Thanks for sharing!

[giantbrookie]

Beautiful report and photos of peaks, lakes, geology, fish, and dogs! Even the smoky views are appealing for their weird lighting. When one talks of a Convict Creek trip, this really hits all of the highlights, including some of the more off-the-beaten path places. Bright Dot is a long time favorite of mine (1972, 1976, 1981, 1987). The metamorphic rocks of Convict Canyon are at the heart of the outstanding scenery: they are multihued and they are intricately folded. The metavolcanic rocks tend to have the warm reddish-brown outcrop colors, whereas the limestone/marble has the gray colors. By the way, on your climb of Mt Baldwin and hiking above Bright Dot, did you come across those amazing rhombs of calcite? In the afternoon light from Bright Dot Lake there is this surreal glitter on the slopes of Mt Baldwin. The glitter is from all of the calcite rhombs scattered on the slope. These have tumbled down various chutes from a spot that was once a mine (reclaimed so you'd never know a mine was there) to extract the calcite--from what I heard it was used in bombsight optics in WWII.

[SSSdave]

Thanks for the photo tour. Where Star Trek Insurrection was partially filmed offering unworldly landscapes. I camped not far from where you took the photo with your wife and dogs. Worth visiting mid afternoons is the south end of the 3240+ ridge just north and its northeast bench at the brink of cliffs. Well done finding a camp at the lonely end of the valley south of Mildred Lake that few visit as it is a wonderland of interesting geology and flora, best most years late July. Note one can readily cross country up slopes to the lakes southwest. I have more base camping to do in that basin.

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[Harlen]

Giantbrookie wrote:

By the way, on your climb of Mt Baldwin and hiking above Bright Dot, did you come across those amazing rhombs of calcite? In the afternoon light from Bright Dot Lake there is this surreal glitter on the slopes of Mt Baldwin.

Yes, Lizzie and I found two great pockets of calcite crystals on the regular route to Bright Dot, and then I wandered right into a slope full of them shining in my headlamp on my early morning climb of Baldwin; that was surreal indeed.

Thanks for all of the comments, and that's a fine photo Dave. It gives the feeling that Red Slate Mountain falls all the way down to the lower valley.

[Harlen]

windknot wrote:

I especially like the composition and lighting of your fine photos. And that's a prodigious amount of brookies caught.

Thanks for your first point, to which I'll note that many shots are originally shite, and I mend them with editing in Google Photos. I try not to overdo it, mainly I fix the small point and shoot camera's tendency to over expose. Didn't Ansel Adams say that half the quality of a photo is in the original composition and light, and the other half is in the darkroom work?

As for my many little fish, why don't you just go ahead and say that they are only half the size of the fish you caught.

[windknot]

Thanks for your first point, to which I'll note that many shots are originally shite, and I mend them with editing in Google Photos. I try not to overdo it, mainly I fix the small point and shoot camera's tendency to over expose. Didn't Ansel Adams say that half the quality of a photo is in the original composition and light, and the other half is in the darkroom work?

As for my many little fish, why don't you just go ahead and say that they are only half the size of the fish you caught.

Photos: Indeed. I do the same thing, for the same reasons.

Fish: Sure, but I'll bet I spent twice the amount of time fishing you did for far fewer than half the fish!

[SSSdave]

Most that have been up that trail might think given the irregular ancient metamorphic rocks, there is nowhere flat to tent upon until Mildred Lake that is more strenuous than some will want to tackle. Its a 2300 foot 5.0 mile climb of often awkward rocky footing including a slippery ford, from the sagebrush parking lot that can be hot due to the dark rock once late morning sun shines down. On my July 2020 backpack , I only hiked up 1100 feet 3 miles the first day by starting mid afternoon after thunderstorms with lightning waned. Then the next morning day 2 was up at dawn as usual and quickly up 1200 more feet to Mildred Lake before sunrise. Then spent all morning there productively working the valley. After cooking lunch mid afternoon continued on to near Dorothy's outlet that would otherwise be another 500 feet. Although on the first afternoon I camped well away from the trail within an uneven stony cottonwood forest at 8600 feet, there were 2 well used spots right along the trail where a couple tents could fit in. So a more leisurely way for oldsters into that wonderland.

[giantbrookie]

You know the cooperative brookies of Convict Canyon, and especially Bright Dot Lake are a big part of what got first me, then Judy into High Sierra fishing. In 1976 my best buddy wondered how I could do all that hiking in the Sierra with the sole purpose of climbing summits while I passed by so many lakes that no doubt had some nice fish. He said I surely must have remembered some place I had camped at that was teeming with decent fish. The first place I thought of was Bright Dot, where I recalled seeing a ton of fish while camped there on climbs of Morrison and Baldwin in 1972. So, in '76 I backpacked to Bright Dot with two friends, my first High Sierra backpacking trip done without my dad, and the first trip taken with fishing as the objective. My buddy showed me the rudiments of lure fishing and I caught on to the extent that I recall doing better than he did. I figure neither of us must have had much skill because I think the score over two days was something like 10 to 7 (two days to catch 10 fish there?). The fish were in the 10-11" range. In 1987 I figured on taking Judy to a place I was pretty sure she could catch fish (her 2nd backpacking trip with me), so we headed to Bright Dot. Judy then became the first person to outfish me at a lake (the scores on the two days were something like 11-8, and 17-12). The fish ran a bit bigger in those days (9-12", similar to my results in another visit with some geology friends in 1981) than they probably do today (owing to continued increase in population from all-too-good-spawning; same thing has happened at Cloverleaf which had fairly chunky brookies as recently as 1984). In any case Bright Dot was a key place in igniting the fishing fire for me in 1976 and for Judy in 1987. By the time Judy and I were taking Lee and Dawn into the high country we knew of plenty of places that required less hiking and yielded larger fish, so Lee and Dawn have never been to Bright Dot. However, the recollections of Bright Dot will always be there for me and Judy. Your report was the first report I can recall that had a photo of Bright Dot. It really brought back a flood of good memories. Thanks so much for putting your report together.

[Harlen]

Giantbrookie writes:

... the recollections of Bright Dot will always be there for me and Judy. Your report was the first report I can recall that had a photo of Bright Dot. It really brought back a flood of good memories.

That nice to hear, but small recompense for your generous advice over the years, and the gift of The Romance of the Three Kindoms epic.
If Bright Dot photos are rare, I'll add a few more:

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Did you notice it here?

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And here too, in my favorite Morrison Ridge shot. Noting the scale of the Morrison talus slope above Bright Dot, I wonder how long before that wonderful lake fills in?