Day 12: Evolution Valley to Evolution Lake
After a few challenging days I was very grateful to have a “near-0” day. We woke up early, struck camp, had a Clif bar for breakfast and hit the trail to climb 1.7 miles and 900 feet up to Evolution Lake, where we would relax for the rest of the day.
We were greeted by a beautiful lake basin, amazing cloud formations, and friends! As we approached the lake I recognized a couple people, the trail friends we had met just before Red’s Meadow, whom we hadn’t seen in about 6 days. Turned out they had likely been just a mile ahead of us the previous day and had made it up to the lake the night before. They were going to be taking a day off as well so we settled in to relax together.
Evolution Lake is easily one of the prettiest spots along the trail and I was really happy to be back there.
I’m going to let the photos tell the rest of the story of our day.
Deer visiting our campsite at breakfast.
An amazing rainbow in the clouds.
A beautiful spot to fish.
Going swimming in the lake.
View of Evolution Lake from a rocky bluff.
Dan fishing at the outlet of Evolution Lake.
The remains of our appetizer.
Sunset over Evolution Valley.
The last of the day’s light touching the ridge line.