Part 5 - Day at Ershim Lake, drive to Lakecamp
Part 5 Day at Ershim - drive to Lakecamp Lake
Hanging out at beautiful Ershim Lake
After three days with lots of driving, lots of exercise and plenty of stress, we decided to sleep in a bit and enjoy a half-day hanging out at beautiful Ershim Lake. This lake is a true High Sierra beauty, the camp here is beautiful. We wanted to go over the rigs; make sure that everything was tight and that nothing was going to fall off. We also wanted to enjoy the scenery, do some fishing and get cleaned up. A little personal hygiene is a great morale booster. Although we had nothing to be demoralized about, everyone had done a wonderful job; this is a very tough trail. We had some nicks and bruises but nothing that wouldn’t heal or couldn't be repaired. We hadn’t done any winching. No one had gotten stuck. Nothing had broken. We had plenty of food and enough beer to make it to the end of the trail. Our focus had been on the challenges of the trail - we had all met that challenge. There had been no squabbling, everybody had a job and got it done. It was easy to be proud of our crew and our efforts.
This is a beautiful place, well worth pausing for a while. We wished that we had an extra day to spend. The camp at Ershim Lake is very well done, you can tell that large groups meet here and it’s well laid out for that kind of thing. But we were alone. The group we saw last night on the way in, cleared out early and we had the place to ourselves, on a lovely sunny day.
Erik cooked french toast, I made coffee. Erik was doing most of the cooking and we were all enjoying it. He was working a lot. I was a bit preoccupied with my truck and felt that I was pushing it well beyond it’s intended purpose; given it’s current configuration. In retrospect, I should have bitten the bullet and put larger tires on it before the trip, there really isn’t much else that I could have done to prepare it for this trail. Maybe a cage to protect the sheet metal, but rock crawling is not really it’s intended purpose. It’s an adventure rig, made for the wide-open spaces.
The FJ does pretty good
My FJ has two fuel tanks for long-range driving; so that I can get way back, into places most people don't really think about going. I have dual batteries with a solar panel hook up, so that I don’t get stuck if I stay in one place for as long as I want to. I love to travel solo, making up my itinerary as I go, taking the adventure as it comes, so I’m pretty well self contained. And I like it that way. But I’m aspirational and optimistic and like many, I want to be able to do it all; so that’s why I’m here. I love adventuring with my brother and our boys and testing our limits. It’s our dream to have the whole clan along some day and to adventure off-road together on a yearly basis. Maybe some day our boys will have their own rigs, and we’ll go on long adventures. We can only hope. I should probably invest in a trail welder before that day…
Earlier, before breakfast, I hiked a bit of the upcoming trail on the way out of the camp, lurking behind the crew that left in the morning and I watched their struggles, just 200 yards from camp, the challenges began immediately. Nothing that we couldn’t handle, it was just going to take some time. We were getting used to that. This wasn’t the right time to be preoccupied with what’s next - focus on what’s now.
We had a gorgeous August day to savor and play for a while before we picked the trail back up. looked over the FJ while, Jake took off to take a shower and the others went to look for fish. We were enjoying our solitude. The rest of the crew headed out to fish while I puttered around camp and reorganized and repacked. After a while I headed out to join them and saw that they were all having success with the fishing and just having a great time in general. We had made the right decision to delay the trail for a while.
We hung out until 1:00 or so and then quickly packed up the rest of the camp and headed back out on to the trail. It was tough as usual, with all of the expected challenges. It wasn’t long before we made it to “Divorce Rock” which wasn’t too tough just a little sketchy. We made it without much problem.
Divorce Rock. Not a great perspective it drops quite a bit from here
Nasty road dropping down to Lakecamp Lake
According to the 4WDC of Fresno the driving times on the trail are as follows:
CAMPSITES: DRIVING TIME:
Voyager Rock 3 miles 1/2 hour
Thompson Lake 11 miles 6 hours
Summit Lake 14 miles 7 hours
East Lake 17 miles 10 hours
Ershim Lake 22 miles 13 hours
Lakecamp Lake 26 miles 16 hours
Kaiser Pass 31 miles 2 to 3 days
Since we had taken about 15 hours total to make it to Thompson Lake, we needed to use about a 2.25x factor to adjust for our experience and our rigs. Even so, from my research, I think these times are far shorter than what most people will experience driving this trail. I figure that our driving time on the trail was closer to 32 hours.
But we were getting faster, Ershim Lake to Lakecamp Lake is supposed to take three hours, we took five. On our way, we passed a couple of very well-built rigs that were heading into Ershim lake to hang out for the day, they were locals who knew the trail well and could pretty much roll over most anything without any problem. One of the rigs, a highly modified Rubicon was rolling on 37’s and the other was on 40’s - wow! If my memory doesn’t fail me too badly these were vehicles number ten and eleven for the trip. Not much traffic on this trail.
The final downhill stretch into Lakecamp is particularly tough with lots of large loose rocks and tough tree-squeezes.
On the loose rocks
Erik donates a fender to the cause
Along the way Erik took a tree too close and paid the price with a fender. It was so easy, given the sheer amount of obstacles we faced, to grow slightly complacent and pay the price. It isn’t really due to lack of experience or skill; it was just a lapse of focus or judgement. Sometimes the simplest obstacles were the ones that exacted their due.
Another beauty. Lake camp Lake.
We got into Lakecamp Lake as evening approached, set up camp and gathered firewood. Storm clouds were gathering and we experienced some heavy cloud-bursts, but they didn’t really dampen our spirits. We enjoyed time around the fire and made an honest attempt to eat most of our remaining food; this was to be our last night on the trail.
Next: Part 6 Kaiser Pass and those nasty final S-turns
