Papoose Lake Revisited

Papoose Lake in the Trinity Alps as view from the south ridgeline.

Trinity Alps Wilderness

In November 2008, I made my first trip to Papoose Lake in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. That trip inspired my first blog post which evolved into Field Notes From Plant Explorations. This first post was more about geology than plants because of the unique geologic character of the Papoose Lake Basin.

Papoose Lake in the Trinity Alps Wilderness in the smoky haze of late summer 2023.

This month, almost 15 years later, I returned to Papoose Lake to conduct vegetation surveys as part of our Klamath Mountains Vegetation Mapping Project. In many ways the basin is the same but in others changes are afoot. What follows are some reflections on 15 years of blogging through the eyes of a Klamath Mountain lake basin.

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Red Buttes Wilderness | Recognizing Wild

Original Publication DATE: 7/13/2011

Our adventure began in the heavy rain of late June. We waved farewell to Allison from the Canyon Creek Trailhead to walk the Bigfoot Trail–in search of wild plants and places–for two weeks. As we climbed into the Trinity Alps it was doubtful we would be able to hike very far because of heavy snow and high water. On our second day, as the rain cleared, we approached the dangerously swift Stuarts Fork and were, for a moment, stopped by Mountains and Water.

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Wet weather, heavy snow at the passes, and swift creek crossing typified the first week of hiking through the Trinity Alps, Russian Wilderness, and Marble Mountains. Bottom left is the crossing of Stuarts Fork in the Alps–without that log, the trip would not have happened.

 

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