We have another 2.14 very interesting miles of hiking up 680 more feet from the Wilderness boundary to Lake Genevieve.

First we'll cross this open ledge wedged in the side of the ridge as we enter a wedge of forest reaching to the top of the valley along Meeks Creek.

At the far end of the open rocky ledge we enter a deeply muffled temperate forest before we come upon Meeks Creek and its convenient bridge. We recognize a natural "sweet spot," where the nifty shape of the terrain works with prevailing winds and character of the weather cycle to create a unique zone of biological lushness.

Man, we've barely entered the Desolation Wilderness and encounter Natural treasure.

Sometimes these "sweet spots" are as simple as a circle of grass growing out of a gravel bed, other times they are crowns of temperate lushness concentrated within terrain complexities and wedged atop an otherwise dry dry strip of forest.

The air feels rich with cool mositure within this special zone.

The terrain steps up in complexity on the other side of the bridge. The trail bends a U-turn around the hilltop through an interesting close-in section part of an even larger S-curve around and between the hilltops wedged in at the head of the valley we have been hiking into. This S-turn marks the junction of the ridges bracketing the meadow we first passed along the edge hiking through the Meeks Bay Trailhead.

The ridge arm we have been traversing up was pinching up to the unique head of this low valley, this little vale, as we climbed.

Meeks Bay to Dicks Pass
15 minute Backpacking Map

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Hiking a mile from the wilderness boundary up to the head of the valley holding Meeks Creek we find ourselves in a protected area under the shadows of the surrounding ridgetops.

The physical layout of this location induces shade, Meeks Creek providing water nourishing a dense stand of forest protecting the moist environment supporting the ferns, ivy, and moss which characterizes this little zone as temperate.

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Exiting the open space into thickening forest the trail winds around pleasing boulders into a zone of temperate forest below Lake Genevieve, Desolation Wilderness.

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Footbridge over Meeks Creek

Transitions

The exposed heat of hiking along the edge of the dried out meadow from the trailhead to the ridge, albeit a meadow that is being filled up with lodgepoles, swiftly transitiones into a shaded hike traversing the ridge arm up towards the head of the valley holding Meeks Creek below Lake Genevieve.

At the head of this little vale the junction of its convoluted ridge arms forces the trail to track around and through a neat looping section of trail of close-up wrinkled terrain features.

Approaching the head of the valley below Lake Genevieve your body will not fail to notice the transition from hot, dry forest into this small zone that shelters a cool temperate zone, replete with lady finger ferns and ivy, all part of a deep green layer of undergrowth, with a refreshing cool and moist feel to the air.

The Roar of Silence
This is a delightful place, and the same terrain features that provide the shade and coolness also provides a muffled zone of quiet that soothes the soul.
This quiet can be profoundly loud, as the absence of accustomed urban noise can register more heavily on the senses than noise itself during our first days on the trail.
It is a profound sense of silence, what I call the roar of silence. Earlier in the Summer the heavy hiker traffic would have made this deep quiet unlikely.

This is just the first of what will be many examples of backpacking not just through nature, but through profound transitions created by departing an environment dominated by man into one run by nature. Internal and external transitions.

The strains and pains of hiking with a heavy pack are immediately offset by the beauty of the terrain and deeply engaged experiences our packs allow us to access.

This experience will deepen where the trail steepens.

The trail turns up, significantly steeper than the trail up to Lake Genevieve, for the climb up to Phipps Pass just past the boggy zone off the South shore of Stony Ridge Lake.

Then we climb!

1000 feet in 2.11 miles between the South shore of Stony Ridge and Phipps Pass.

A Hard3 trail.

Meeks Bay to Dicks Pass
15 minute Backpacking Map

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Hiking North

Traversing the Ridge
down to Meeks Bay

Hiking South

Lake Genevieve