Got Commando because I wanted to tackle the (I thought) trail-less overland route to the little lakes I could see from the top of GR proper. We parked under the shade trees where the trail to GR starts and headed overland down the meadow.
We got to the edge of the cliff and looked down over Sanford lake. As expected, there's no easy route down the cliff for a hiker. We paralleled the cliff edge for a while gazing over the spectacular view and then worked back to the meadow. We crossed a dry stream and then intersected a good trail to Sanford that followed the stream's course.
We took it, and after about 1/2 mile or so, we were soaking our feet in Sanford lake and gazing around. The lake is at the base of GR and is framed by a lichen covered granite head wall on that side. The granite continues around the lake getting lower and lower until it disappears and gives the lake that "endless" pool effect overlooking the wilderness beyond.
We waded around and explored some of the shoreline and I tossed sticks for Commando. Although I had carried my big, heavy Neal Stephenson book (System of the World) I just wasn't quite in the mood to sit and read it as planned.
There are quite a chain of little lakes and so we headed out to find some of them. There wasn't much of a trail and the first lake we found was really just a muddy pool. Then we found a dry lake. Then we found a tiny, pretty lake, then another little lake. At a granite saddle at the north(?) end of this lake I could see another big lake (about Sanford sized) maybe 500 feet below. This was Downey lake.
It was getting late so we turned our backs on Downey and scrambled up some scree and into a volcanic slot to the top of the ridge overlooking both the little unnamed lake and Downey lake.
We just kept bearing west and south and going up and eventually we reached the proper trail and had just a bit of a climb left to back to the car.
I saw some strange, fresh tracks on the trail. I thought, gee, those look like cow tracks, but I'm not sure they graze cows here. I tried to make them out to be very large deer tracks...or perhaps scuffed horse tracks...or perhaps horse tracks where the horse had some kind of weird shoe...but none of those theories seemed plausible.
As we neared the camp, I could hear some musical tones...perhaps a banjo? Also, the music was intermittent. Keep in mind that it's windy and non-wind sounds are obscured wind sounds.
Eventually the mystery was cleared up...by...free range cows with bells! They were marching through meadow just below the camp. The campers thought this was pretty exciting and people headed into the willows to get closer to the cows. The cows weren't too fond of that idea and a terrific mooing racket began. It wasn't really mooing, more like braying and mooing.
By now I had Commando on his leash, because I was pretty sure he would find cows entertaining to chase and that's just not right. We kept walking along the (now) road back to the car while the cows kept up the same pace just below us in the meadow.
The continued the braying and mooing. Something was stirring them up (and it wasn't Commando).
We saw them stretched out in a loose line below. A caramel colored cow, followed by about 7 light to dark red cows, then a dark red cow behind and still in the brush. The last cow was making most of the noise.
We kept on to the truck and sat down near it on some rocks bordering the meadow just as the line of cows was walking over the saddle to wherever they were headed. The caramel leader cow paused at the top to give another loud bray, moo bellow and they continued on at a fast pace. These were cows on a mission.
I kept sitting on my rock while Commando kept trying to figure out if there was some combination of moves he could take to escape the leash and follow the cows.
A good while later, I heard the bell again and the dark red cow and a large dark red bull calf crested over the saddle. They didn't like seeing us and paused, but then continued on after circling us. So this explained the mooing and braying! The bull calf wasn't keeping up and the other cows were scolding him. The lead cow had finally abandoned the mother and her calf to get the rest to...wherever they were going. Fascinating!
Commando was very disappointed to not get to chase the cows but he settled down once we were back in the truck headed home.
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