Stuart Fork Trail to Morris Meadow and Emerald Lake, Trinity Alps, Ca

This was my second hike into the Trinity Alps, but this time I got to share the experience with Olma.

Olma at the trailhead, ready to go

We spent the night before in Weaverville, just as I did last year, but this time staying at the Weaverville Victorian Inn, as the 49er Gold Rush Motel had no vacancies available. The Victorian was a little more expensive, but it was a very comfortable room. This practice of getting in a good night's rest the night before a big hike seems to be a good plan.

We hiked in on Sunday, the day before Labor Day. Last year I hiked in on Labor Day and met droves of campers on their way out of the Alps. Seeing a large number of cars parked at the trailhead led me to believe that there would be a fairly sizable crowd at Morris Meadow this year.

We got off to an early start, which I knew would give us plenty of time to make the 10 mile trip to the meadow with plenty of spare time, if needed, to rest and recover on the way in. I was confident that Olma could do this as we had both recently converted to the Paleo Diet and had taken up bicycling for exercise. As a result, we had both lost a considerable amount of weight and I knew we were in good shape for this hike.

The weather was perfect; right around 80 degrees. Stuart Fork Trail is great in hot weather as it is about 90% shaded from the trailhead all the way up to the Morris Meadow and beyond. My sunglasses stayed put through the entire hike, right there on the loop attached to my backpack shoulder strap. We both did a great job of reminding each other to stay hydrated as it was pretty warm that day and we were working up a good sweat with the steady elevation gain.

Five hours later, we arrived at Morris Meadow, and I was happy to see that my favorite camping spot was not taken. It's a small enclosure tucked into a pocket of evergreens, with a stone fire ring and an opening with an amazing view of Morris Meadow and the granite mountains that surround the meadow...

Beautiful View of Morris Meadow

As soon as I had our camp site set up, with the tent in place and our food hung just out of bear reach in a nearby tree, I brought Olma down to the cold spring which would be our primary source of water for the next few days. But as hot as I felt after that hike to the meadow, it would first become my swimming hole.

We found a swimming hole!

Speaking of water sources, I'd like to pause here and point out what, in my humble opinion, is quite possibly the greatest invention ever for backpackers. That invention would be the SteriPEN. I purchased one prior to this trip because they happened to be on sale at REI when Olma and I went shopping for freeze dried food for our trip. The SteriPEN has been on my wishlist ever since I read about it in Backpacker Magazine, so I was pretty pumped to see that it was on sale the day we were in the store. Prior to purchasing this device, which uses UV rays to kill harmful bacteria in drinking water, I was using the standard water treatment tablets which take a while to decontaminate the water and which leave a funny taste in your drinking water. The SteriPEN provides you with clean drinking water in less than two minutes and is very simple to use. I can't recommend it highly enough. It served us very well on this trip and I loved the clean taste of that cool alpine water without having any chemical aftertaste.

Morris Meadow base camp