Ansel Adams Wilderness (Ediza Lake, Iceberg Lake, Volcanic Ridge) - July 23-26, 2018
After an internship in the bay area, I ended up spending four days in the Ansel Adams Wilderness with my friend Nicole. We got walk-up permits to camp at Ediza and Iceberg Lakes, and I wanted to checked out Volcanic Ridge too. Props to the rangers in Mammoth Lakes for helping us organize our itinerary and making all of the different permit zones make sense to us. We wanted to get an early start, so on Monday morning we drove down Reds Meadow Road to the trailhead. Between 7am and 7pm, the road is closed to passenger traffic you have to take the shuttle bus instead.
We made it up to Ediza Lake in good time. Camping is prohibited along the eastern shore of the lake, but we didn’t see many appetizing sites on the other shores either. Past the western end we found a nice spot in the meadows on granite slabs – perfect for the next two nights. Since Volcanic Ridge was my idea, I went to scope out the route on the north ridge/gully while Nicole rested at camp. It seemed like it would be mostly talus walking with a couple of short class 2-3 moves, although I only scoped out the beginning part of the route.
We woke up at 3am to catch sunrise from the ridge. Routefinding was…interesting in the dark. It also took us much longer than anticipated (around 3 hours) to get up to the summit which meant we missed sunrise by a few minutes. A real bummer but the views of the Minarets were tremendous and even in the harsher post-sunrise light everything looked divine. We soaked in the views for an hour or so before heading back down to camp. There was talk of attempting Mount Ritter as well, but we were both too tired and called it a day.
The next day, we moved camp to Iceberg Lake. Even prettier than Ediza Lake. Some heavy smoke blew in in the evening but was gone by sunrise thankfully. We debated checking out Cecille Lake even though the trail looked loose and steep. In hindsight, the trail would have been totally fine, but I don’t think after the exhaustion of going up Volcanic Ridge either of us really felt like moving camp again. I’d definitely like to return to climb Ritter and check out some of the lakes on the west side of the Minarets next time.
All in all, this was a super leisurely trip and very enjoyable. This was my second time in the Sierra (the first being a thru-hike of the JMT in 2016) and I honestly thought everything I saw on this trip was nicer than the entirety of the JMT. I enjoyed the JMT thru-hike for what it was, but I was dismayed that it skirted around the nicest scenery on the route. I strongly prefer to make a base camp in one spot and do some off-trail exploration and/or climb some peaks, and that’s exactly what this trip allowed me to do.
