My wife Perri and I headed up the Rush Creek trail early one evening while camping at the Silver Lake Campground on the June Lake Loop in the Eastern Sierras. The Rush Creek trail begins at the Pack station across from Silver Lake, and cuts across a ridge going south. You pass through a thick aspen grove as you ascend the hill, eventually emerging from the trees into onto the chaparral covered rocky slopes that give the Sierras their character. Shortly after emerging into the rocky landscape you pass a sign declaring that you are entering the “Ansel Adams Wilderness Area”.

About ¾ up the ridge you come across an old but still functional set of tracks laid into the 70 degree hillside with a cable strung in the middle. It is at this point you also begin catching glimpses of the pretty waterfall spilling from Agnew Lake. I learned later that this is a still functioning tramway, shuttling workers up the hill to the hydroelectric plant at the top of the falls.

It was getting dark at this point, so we made the decision not to try to make the lake a short distance up the trail but to rather cut across and relax with a view of the falls, letting the sound of the crashing water bath our ears as we talked and admired the view of the community of June Lake in the distance.

We then headed back down the trail as darkness began to envelope us, reaching the aspen grove as the last of the light faded, and the mosquitoes began their evening search for a warm meal.