I was off for another exploration into Indian Heaven Wilderness yesterday. I did a little adjustment to my normal route to allow for checking condition in some other areas. My first surprise was at the parking lot where I found lots of rigs from lot of hunters. I quickly realized I did not bring enough bright colors. As has been the case this year lake levels everywhere were extremely low. There had been some rain so the trail and brush was wet and soon my boots and pant legs were also. So this time our I was in search of fall colors, getting to the lake of the ancestors, some off trail exploring and to check out a trail lead at the end of Elk Lake. I was also trying to figure out just where abandon 29a went on the map and how off the map was. Because of all of the off trail I don’t know how far I went but I was out for 9 ½ hours. So general route was in at Placid Lake and take 29 and 29a into the central area with some off trail. Then catch CCta trail to Rock Lake and connect to CCtb to Junction Lake. Then the PCT to 179 to Elk Lake then return by CCta and 29a.
