After church Sunday we went to Zay and Heather Nickell's house for a surprise party to welcome Isaac and Heather and kids back to Visalia. We had BBQ and fresh squeezed
lemonade. It was good. Then we came home to finish gathering our stuff. We made it to Oakhurst after 5pm and went to Danny's Pizza Factory for dinner. We split breadsticks with cheese and a basil sundried tomato pizza. It was good, and fun to be at Danny's. Then we drove up to Fresno Dome. The smell when we passed Calvin Crest road was delicious, it must be one of my favorite smells of all times. The road was rough so we had to take it slow in Jonah and Michelle's little Honda. We finally made it to the parking lot and there were a number of cars there so we were worried there might be other people on Fresno Dome, but we met them coming down, whew.
So we hiked up and it was pretty good hike, rather difficult because we had to carry all our stuff, but not too bad.
We saw some patches of snow on the way up, but the top of the mountain was clear. It was cold though, really cold. There thick low clouds that were threatening to engulf us and the air was damp.
We enjoyed the sunset and spread out our sleeping bags.
After dark we watched a couple episodes of the Office before going to bed.
That's when the attacks started. We aren't sure what it was, mice or rats or some other rodent. It wasn't surprising because Jonah has had some problems before, but they were bad. The first one I felt run along my back outside my sleeping bag, yikes! Then we would hear them scampering by our heads or chewing on things. I felt one pulling on my pillow or sleeping bag a couple times. We each developed a different technique to deal with them; Jonah slept with his fist by his head and when he felt them running around up there, he would throw his arm up in an effort to fling the rodent off the mountain. Michelle, who was in the middle, just tucked her head in her sleeping bag and hid. I slept with a flashlight in my hand and when I heard them I would try to blind them with the light. I saw them a number of times doing that, sometimes within a couple feet. About halfway through the night, they decided to leave us alone, for which we were very thankful
since it was difficult to sleep with them running around and chewing on things. My camera bag has some bite marks in it now. We slept in because it was so cold we were completely under our covers and weren't woken up by the sunrise. Here we are demonstrating our techniques for dealing with the rodents. We went back down to Oakhurst and got breakfast at the Mountain House, it was delicious but the french toast was bigger than I remember and I couldn't finish my two pieces. After breakfast, we headed down the Bass Lake road to find the road to Jackass Lake. We passed Jones' Store and went high up the mountain and finally we found the trailhead.
The trail was not very clearly marked and we got lost a few times so we started stacking rocks, which we did even more on the way down so hopefully whoever hikes it next will be able to follow the trail. It was a longer hike than I expected and really steep at times. I felt so out of shape, it was terrible. I just couldn't breathe. Probably a lot it was the elevation, we figured we were somewhere around 6000ft. Finally we made it to the lake and we were so excited to have found it! There was a lot of snow on the ground still around there and it was cold, but so beautiful.
We had to hike through the snow to get there.
We wandered around taking pictures then sat on some rocks to eat our apples for snack.
Then we headed back down to the car. The way down was faster of course and we had fun stacking rocks to mark the trail, but our knees and feet really felt the downhill and we were thankful to make it back to the car. We drove down to Oakhurst and were planning to have dinner at Pete's Place, but they were closed so we had to go to the Taquria instead. It was pretty good, but not what we had been craving the whole drive down. Then we drove back home, listening to music and singing the whole way to keep everyone awake and alert. It was a fun trip.
I just had a little camera, so the pictures aren't as good as they could have been, but I didn't want to risk bringing my regular camera because I and others have fallen in the creek on this hike. We got to the point where I've stopped the other times I've hiked it and decided to keep going which meant finding our way down this cliff; 
yeah it was kinda crazy, but everyone loves an adventure right? 
The view from the bottom was amazing. 
We wandered farther downstream and stopped to watch a couple snakes crawling around a tangle of branches, then turned around. 
This is where we stopped for lunch, after we came back up the cliff again. 
It was just a little steep. We had bread, fruit, and cheese, pesto jack cheese actually which was tasty. 
We continued upstream slowly, soaking up the beauty, smells, and nature in general. 
There is nothing like it and it was so refreshing. 
We had to pass through a patch of ladybugs and it was scary because ladybugs bite, plus swarms of anything are gross. 
We made it back to where we left our shoes; yes, we were hiking barefoot, it's really the only way to go. We drove the rest of the way up to Calvin Crest and said hi to some friends who are on staff this summer before hiking George's Falls trail. That was beautiful too. 
I wished we had all day to soak it up. But I had plans for the evening. Ashley was hosting a Flat 8 BBQ and pool party at her house, so I headed back to Fresno. Juan, Jen, and Alicia weren't able to come after all, but the rest of us had a great time. 
We had hamburgers for dinner and looked at Charity's London scrapbook, then swam and just had a chill evening. 
Ashley and I were trying to take a picture together. 
Ashley had made chocolate dipped strawberries and they were so good. 
It was a great evening.
