My hiking story and pictures

At 12,590 Ft., Mt. Conness (孔尼氏山) is the 7th highest peak in Yosemite National Park. Besides, Conness Glacier is the second largest in Yosemite. My friends went to Mt. Dana in July, and saw the beautiful Mt. Conness from there, so I joined this class 3 climbing. Our plan is to take east ridge via Alpine Lake. 4:00 Got up. It's day for Perseus meteor shower. I made my own wish to the meteor. Hopefully I can reach 3 of the 7 summits in the world!!! 5:40 Tried to hike from the Saddlebag Lake Dam, but failed, so we drove to Sawmill Campground trail head. 6:20 Sawmill Campground 6:50 Hall Natural Area. It's not allowed to camp from here on. 6:55 Carnegie Institute of Washington building. They store some equipment inside. 8:00 Chung-Ren thought we were not following the trail to the Alpine Lake, but there were some piled rock on the trail, so we still followed the unclear trail. 8:40 We arrived the valley between Mt. Conness and White Mountain. This is the place where rock climbers start their journey to the ridge, but not for us. I want to be alive!!! We don't think we can have class 5 climbing here, so we headed northeast. There is no trail here, need to step on pines sometimes. 10:00 Alpine Lake. Snowfield on the southwest side of the lake. The other three circle around the lake from the east side, but I took the west side route. Took snack break after meeting with the other three. 11:50 A flat area where a smaller lake resides. Another snowfield attached to it, so we had to climb to the south to avoid it. Saw other three 3 people ahead of us. 12:10 Reach the east ridge. Conness Glacier and Conness Lakes are in the view. Lunch break. James decided to stay here, and took nap to wait us. 13:15 After climbing steep class 2-3 buttress (50-60 degrees), we arrived the summit plateau. The top of the trail is on the left hand side of a big rock. Mt. Lyell and Half Dome are in the view. 13:40 Some people piled up the rock to form the campground here. I don't know why there is concrete pole here. Mt. Conness looks like a bun from this direction. 肉包好吃 Some portion of the ridge is very exposed. Cliff is on both sides. 會一失足成千古恨 There are step-like rock on the way. They have so much energy. 14:05 Mt. Conness Summit. Yeah!!! Practice yoga, sign the guest book, 題詩作對 14:35 After taking many pictures, we start descending. 14:55 Back to summit plateau 15:10 Back to the top of the ridge, a big piled rock is our sentinel. Don't miss it. 15:30 We just spent 20 minutes back down here, compared to an hour up this buttress. Meet James here, go back down. Shared my white tea with everybody as we were so thirsty. 16:30 We arrived the gorge north of Alpine Lake. We saw other people go down here, and we didn't like to pass by Alpine Lake again. 17:00 Following the dried creek for a while, we had to jump on the waterless waterfall, then arrived the flatter valley. We just followed the direction, not on the trail. 17:40 Connect to the trail. 18:20 Carnegie Institute of Washington building. Someone told us the trail branch to Alpine Lake starts from here, but we don't think so after researching some trail nearby. 18:45 Back to the parking lot in Sawmaill walk-in Campground.