Lake Sylvia Backpacking

June 23 - 25, 2006

Scroll down to see video below; be patient, it takes a couple minutes to load at DSL speed

This is a video slideshow of a two-night backpacking trip into the Desolation Wilderness at Lake Sylvia. The lake is about 8,000 ft. elevation.  We were surprised at how much snow was still there in late June, 2006.  The lake was also still half covered with ice, and the fish were no where to be seen despite our presentation of an assortment of flies. Same for Lyons Creek during our descent.  It was a fun trip anyway.

GBF Member Mike Laing organized this backpacking trip with friends Steve Stewart and Craig Grace, who I designated as our "Sherpas" since they provided us stragglers (me) with pack assistance during the last half mile of trail up to the lake.  The trail here was hidden under 5 foot snow drifts which fortunately were solid enough for us to hike over.  We were also fortunate to discover that our campsite located in a stand of tall evergreens near the lake was clear of snow and the trees were nicely spaced for pitching tents and my new Hennessey Hammock, which worked great.

We arrived Friday afternoon, pitched camp, cooked dinner, and explored the lake. Since it was 106º F in Sacramento, the temperature didn't dip below 40º at night and we enjoyed alternating warm and cool breezes during the day. We also had a brief hail storm Saturday afternoon, which is shown as close-ups of the 1/4" hail stones.

The video is an experiment using Microsoft's new Photo Story 3 for Windows, a free download from their website.  It enables you to add zoom in/out motion to your slides along with sound and text. The music I used is: (1) The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Party on the Mountain from their Woody Creek album, and (2) Charlie Robison's Good Times.  Both songs are MP3 formats downloaded from Apple's  iTunes website. The resulting Windows Media Audio Video (WMV) file is a rather large 24.1 MB.  If you want to rerun the video, just right click the image below and click "stop" or "play" at any time.

Let me know if you have any problems or if it's too slow for your connection. So, turn up the volume on your PC and ENJOY!

Kent Ripley

GBF Webmaster