21 Dec Trip to desolation wilderness #1

My second trip outside of SF took me backpacking to desolation wilderness. This is an area outside of Lake Tahoe that cannot be accessed by car. We were a group of 9 people that had all our food and equipment for the next 3 days packed together in our own backpacks. The first day was fairly challenging as we hiked for 10 miles through mountains and valleys. On this day we say quite some travelers (around 30) which was about as much as we would see for the next two days. We covered quite some distance and ended up sleeping at a small waterfall.

In the evening of the day prior we had to build a bear bag so that the bears would not come for our food during the night. This is done by attaching a rope over a branch and attaching all your food and scented objects to the bottom of it. This method is far from effective as bears can climb and have talons the size of your fingers and could get the food if they wanted too. The night was extremely cold and the next morning the floor was frozen. We woke up at 7:30, enjoyed the sunrise and had breakfast together. One hour later we had packed our bags together and were back on the trail.