Trying to avoid the crowds, given that it was Memorial Day weekend, we decided to avoid car camping and opted for an easy hike-in camp. The middle high country has always been one of my favorite areas, and after hearing water was still flowing in Cooper Canyon, we set that as our goal.
When we got there, there was only one other car at Cloudburst Summit, so that looked promising. The hike in on the PCT was nice and scenic. May is always a great time to hike stretches of the PCT, as you run into numerous thru-hikers. Camp was completely empty when we got there, so we set up the tent in a nice shaded spot and lounged about for a bit.
A few hours later, we decided to head downstream toward the waterfall and the turn off to Buckhorn. The stream is low but still flowing at camp, and as you proceed east the flow grows progressively larger. We stopped at a turn off just shy of the junction, where the water was nice and deep, with several fish there to greet us.
When we returned to camp, another group had arrived and set up camp nearby. No big deal, we thought... we figured we wouldn't have the place entirely to ourselves. The problem was, every hour or so, more and more people would show up and join this group. By 10:00pm or so, the group had grown to about 30. FAR too large a group to be staying at a trail camp. So much for solitude. And so much for sleep.
The following morning, we decided to eat breakfast quickly and find another place to spend our day, as this group had all sorts of obnoxious activities planned and had by that time completely taken over the whole place. We headed back up the PCT to the little saddle between Winston Peak and Winston Ridge. Since the hike to Winston Peak from Cloudburst Summit is absurdly easy, we thought we'd give it a try from this north ridge. Turns out there's a well-defined usetrail the entire way up, and it has a nice steep grade the entire way. Definitely the better option if you want to spend more than 10 minutes hiking Winston Peak.
We stuck around up top for no less than 3 hours, and I spotted several flat spots that would have been perfect to pitch a tent. Looking back I would have packed everything up and taken it with us, but oh well. It was nice anyway. The views from the top are awesome, and there are multiple boulder piles that make for some fun scrambles.
We decided to head down the standard route to Cloudburst, since we hadn't been on that part before. After what felt like 30 seconds we were back at the car, however this time the parking area was a madhouse, with several large truck and SUVs blocking multiple other cars in, including our own.
We took pictures of the truck that would have to be moved so we could get out in the morning, and knowing exactly which group they belonged to, brought them back to camp to ask around and tell them to move it. Luckily, the driver had an extra key, so he was able to lend it to me so I could move it myself when we were ready to go.
The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. Moral of the story: Don't look for solitude on Memorial Day weekend.
Pictures:
More photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wattifoto/ ... 837696926/
