Pretty uneventful walk up there, the trail is in really great shape. When I got to the point where it nearly intersects the creek/stream/drainage I saw that it was dry and is now used as trail. I could hear a little bit of water in the dry brush but I couldn't see any trickling down. I chased it upstream for a while but only managed to spot two little pools, mostly covered with a fine layer of dead bugs, bees and twigs. When I say little I mean they were about three feet across and maybe six inches deep.
Since my water sits nestled between the pack body and the mesh back, I recently picked up a Sawyer Mini because it allows forcing water into the Camelback bladder through the drink tube. This was my first chance to use it, and I was glad to have something other than a bandanna to trap all the solids in there. Picking up a max of 16 ounces at a time (more like about 10 in this pool) takes a while, so I spent 20 minutes filling a one liter bottle and topping off my bladder. I promptly walked off and left the bottle there, which I discovered an hour later while getting ready to fix some dinner. About that time I also noticed that I had forgotten my headlamp. Dang....
Anyway, I managed on the water I had and was treated to an OK sunset. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of loud guys in the lower part of Cedar Glen who sat around drinking tequila and yelling most of the night. Guess they forgot about their indoor voices. They also woke me up by walking all around the upper portion to get a view of the full moon, all while yelling at each other to stay quiet because some guy (me) was sleeping up there. That kept up until about 12:15am when they finally went back to their tents for more tequila.
Aside from that it was a nice evening, cool breeze just after sunset but not cold overnight. I packed up this morning and started walking out around 7:30. I saw another 15 people heading up the Chapman trail and didn't bother counting the numbers on the Icehouse canyon section.
So if you head up to the area, it looks like the only really good source of water is Columbine Spring.
A few pics:
The Osprey awaiting my back.
Getting close. Nice view towards the little Telegraph sub-peak.
This used to be a flowing stream. Not big flow but enough to fill a bottle.
Pool where I got water. Actually my Katadyn would have been a better choice.
A view of the sunset towards Sunset Peak.
Heating water for noodles and tea. I also had a little Black Label as a treat.
Sunrise view. Looks a little like the sunset.
