7/30, Boulder Creek to Nobel Lake, Mile 1046.1
Aaron Doss
to Tahoe. We woke up late, and enjoyed our last full day on the
trail. Not much happened, the trail stayed in forest for a while and
then came up to a saddle just before Nobel lake. In the distance dark
streaks of rain fell across the valley, it was coming our way. As we
approached the saddle rain started to fall, horizontally. There was
just enough wind to push the rain into a horizontal slide. A rainbow
appeared behind us arching over the pass, it was beautiful. We
scrambled to some trees for cover and put on our rain gear, it really
wasn't necessary though as we could tell that it would only rain for a
few more minutes. I got out my camera and took some shots of the
rainbow.
We dropped down from the pass and got to Nobel Lake, not a
particularly beautiful lake, being muddy and surrounded by shrubs.
There were a few good camping spots on the west side of the lake so we
took one. As I was setting up the tent I kept looking off to the
sunset and across the lake, the colors were coming quickly, I was
going to be a nice one. Something caught my eye as I gazed at the
slope across from the lake, something brown and furry. I coolly
motioned to Nathalie, "hey, check this out".. The bear was humongous,
probably 300 lbns, with a nice thick brown coat, just beautiful. It
was about 250 meters away. Just when I got my camera lens changed to
a telephoto it detected us. It stopped digging for grubs and
immediately started sniffing the air, then looked right at us. A
second later it was running the other direction, I guess bears around
here have a fear of people.
We better hang our food just in case.
Aaron