We slept much better, and I only recall a moment in the middle of the night when I woke to glimpse a sky full of stars out of our tent’s window before falling asleep again. Once again, as dawn broke upon the Sierra, the sky had successfully fended off clouds from the mountaintops, chasing them away downvalley... I showed my disdain by lowering my gaze to the water, admiring the reflections of sunrise, and avoiding skyward glances until a puff of white appeared, if only briefly. It would be well past sunrise when vermilial light first touched the crest of Banner Peak, but one could watch the Earth turn as shadows fled and the red hand of dawn swept down the mountain slopes to the lake.
The hours immediately after sunrise were filled with sounds of backpackers breaking camp and leaving the lake, and for most of the morning and early afternoon, we had the solitude that we craved. As more and more overnighters filed out, the lake basin was filled with a silence that not even the wind dared break. It would be hours till the campsites began to fill again, and in that respite we had the best views on the planet all to ourselves. From the high perch of our campsite, we watched as each island reacted to the gentle morning breeze like a ship run aground, its bow bravely diverting ephemeral currents egged on by the breeze. The surface of the lake was like litmus paper, changing color with the direction and intensity of the wind... Where the wind coaxed choppy waves, it left behind the dull earth tones of dredged sand. Where it blew across an island, it left a multi-hued wake, but where it could not penetrate a chain of islands that kept it at bay like circled wagons, the lake surface was pure glass.
The southern slope of the lake is a rocky hill decorated with hardy evergreens and patches of windswept scrub brush, mostly Lemmon’s willow. And though it has the privilege of basking in afternoon light, it pales in comparison to the jumble of terrain on the northern shore. After breakfast, we walked toward the PCT trail junction and headed toward a short trail that would take us atop the southern slope. Would we finally find that expansive view of the lake we longed for? Alas, no... We would be thwarted once again by the expanse of the lake, and would only gain glimpses of the headwaters of the middle fork of the San Joaquin rushing away from the lake and a set of islands we could not see from our campsite.