12 miles of hiking • 2750' elevation gain • 1 night
With this weather I just had to go somewhere. Since the high mountains were already snowed in, and I didn't feel ready for winter, Indian Heaven looked like the best choice. Plus, I left Lemei Rock for a solo trip and now it looked like I can finally check it off my list. Decided to make it 2-night trip with Rock and exploration around Wapiki Lake on one day and a big loop on the second day. However, I didn't take my stove and the fire would not burn - the wood was soaking wet (I was only successful to make fire once, by burning all paper I brought to read during a long night in the tent). This left me with insufficient amount of energy bars for the 2.5 days... oh well. After setting camp at Wapiki Lake late on Sunday, me and Pepper the dog went up Lemei Rock the next day. We ascended via the right-hand (wrong) gully which made us bushwhack through fir thicket on the back side of the ridge. There's an obvious trail which made me believe it's the way to follow. On the return, we descended on much more straightforward left-hand gully (right hand if looking from the top) - one has to go towards a small arch on the ascent in order to find this gully, and once there it's fast and easy. I found a golf ball on the lower slope and recalled VanMarmot's story on PH about people playing golf on the top of Lemei Rock. Also had some time to explore the terrain towards Lemei Lake - the trail goes through nice heather and huckleberry meadows. There's not much color overall, but some kind of dwarf huckleberry was quite showy in places.
