Hi everyone!
Sorry for the long delay between posts, I’ve been somewhat busy lately and I haven’t felt like opening up my laptop. Besides being busy at work, I have been making more of an effort to get out and run. I signed up for the FroYo5K in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend! My goal is to be able to run the first two miles without stopping (well, technically my run is more of a jog, but it feels like running to me haha). Somewhat ambitious, but I get froyo at the end, so I will be plenty motivated! It really feels like this 5K was made for me. Anyway, onto my latest hike!
So on Sunday I decided to do a couple of shorter hikes instead of one long one. I had planned to do Trail of the Gargoyles first, but the road that I had to drive down got a little too rocky and I was starting to worry about my tires, so I ended up skipping that. From there I went and did the shore walk to go see the “Column of the Giants.” In geological terms this is referred to as columnar basalt and it’s one of the coolest things to see in the field. When lava flows, the top most part of the lava flow begins to cool, and as it cools it contracts. This contraction typically happens evenly and fractures the basalt, producing perfectly hexagonal columns! One of the most common examples of this is Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (something I have yet to see!). There were a lot of pieces of broken hexagonal columns broken off around the bottom and they were HUGE! They don’t look that big when you’re looking at the cliff as a whole, but man, when you step on them you can really see how big they are!
After visiting Column of the Giants I moved onto my main hike of the day: Blue Canyon to get to Blue Canyon Lake. It was a relatively easy hike (at least compared to my last ones), 3.8 miles roundtrip with only 1,000 ft elevation gain. The hike offered gorgeous views of the Sierras and since I was hiking up a canyon I got to see a lot of small waterfalls! There was also a cool mountain peak that I passed by called the Matterhorn. I think one day I’ll climb it just to say that I climbed the Matterhorn (even though it’s not the real one)! About halfway through the hike the trail got a little tougher to navigate compared to the other hikes that I’ve done. It wasn’t dangerous and the trail didn’t disappear, but it involved a lot more steep descents right down into the canyon, you kind of had to scramble around a lot. Naturally, me being me I ended up sliding about 5 ft down some scree. I have a few bruises on my leg, but overall nothing out of the ordinary for me, I tend to trip more on flat surfaces anyway. After a while you finally get out of the canyon and head away from the stream and you start to see this mountain range. I could tell it didn’t break (meaning I could tell that the canyon ended) so I knew that the lake had to
be getting close. When I got my first glimpse of the lake I basically sprinted to the water because I was so excited. When I finally saw more of the lake I was blown away by the color of the water (see pictures below). It was this perfect turquoise (one of my favorite colors!), especially when the sun was out. It was a pretty small lake (I couldn’t tell how deep it was) but of all the lakes I’ve seen in California so far, it is definitely my favorite. The backdrop of the sharp, jagged mountains with the turquoise of the water just completely blew me away and I could not stop taking pictures! The lake had this little island in the middle so I took my boots off, walked out to it (man was that rough on my feet, I really need to remember to bring flip flops when I go to lakes), and ate lunch and sat in the sun for a while. The lake was at 10,000 ft so it was pretty cool. I had to wear a light sweater, but when the sun was out it felt perfect. I stayed at the lake for about 45 minutes before I decided to head back to my car and go home. Needless to say, this really did become my favorite lake and I will be going back again to enjoy some sun and the view before the summer is over!
Until next time,
go blue, go travel 
once again another wonderful story of your hikes. I love the lake’s color also. I wonder what makes it aqua? How do you protect yourself from danger while doing these hikes by yourself?
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Yea, I’ll have to do some research about how it got to be so blue! I don’t have anything to keep me safe while hiking lol. My grandparents were scared of me getting lost all the time so they bought me a GPS, but that’s about it. I really do need to invest in some bear spray though…
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