Desolation Wilderness Overnight Trip Day 1

(Click any Photo to Enlarge) Christi and I managed to get Wednesday and Thursday off together so we sent RB to doggie day care and packed our crap for a quick overnight in Desolation Wilderness. Christi talked me into going as she has stayed 'hiking' fit since we came home from our last trip. I ,on the other hand, have switched back to my bike so I wanted to stay home and ride for our two days off together. She won out (as usual) and we drove to Emerald Bay to get our Wilderness Permit. Our trailhead choice on this trip was Eagle Falls instead of our usual Bay View as we wanted a little change of pace. The trail from the trailhead to the intersection of the Bayview/Velma Lakes Trail was very well traveled. Mostly day hikers headed to Eagle Lake or adventurous dayhikers trying to get to the Velmas. Once we were on our way to Dick's Lake, we had the trail to ourselves. We arrived at the PCT intersection at about 3:00pm.
We crossed the old dam at the outlet of Dick's Lake and walked around to the non-trail side of the lake. I knew we would have this side of the lake to ourselves. After a little searching we finally found a site that looked out over the lake and was hidden from view of the trail.
Since we arrived at our camp site relatively early, we went for a hike/scramble up to the top of a prominent point that overlooked the lake. After navigating around the pines and manzanita we entered a large boulder field. Christi doesn't really dig this kind of 'off trail' fun like I do.
Luckily she tolerates my excursions and we continued up toward some light Class 2 scrambling. I really enjoy this typical Sierra type of climbing. There are a lot of peaks in the Sierra that can be climbed with just Class 2/3 climbing. Since our plan was to climb Dick's Peak (9875ft.) the next morning, I wanted Christi to get comfortable with a little granite ledge work. Our afternoon was spent route finding and working on hand and foot holds. Before we knew it we were on top of the granite outcropping the protrudes out over the western shore of Dick's Lake.
This was the view from the top looking north toward Fontanellis Lake and the feeder tarns above it.
We headed down back to camp to cook dinner. The weather was fantastic with lows in the 40's and highs in the 70's. As the sun receded behind the mountains this is the view we had out of our tent window. Needless to say we slept well.