Monday, August 17. As I head down the JMT toward the Cascade Valley junction, I got this view up Fish Creek. Virginia Lake is up that wooded hillside left in the rear center.

Heading up from Tully Hole. The route mixed forest and open patches like this: rocky (a mix of slate and granite) with sagebrush, and (look closely) a few flowers.

Monardella odoratissima (mountain monardella) was the most showy (and prolific) bloomer in the rocky stretches on hill above Tully Hole. Interesting slates too.

A giant panorama looking southeast to southwest. Bottom: Tully Hole. Right: Fish Creek downstream with Cascade Valley off-picture to the right. Left: Fish Creek upstream to Horse Heaven (meadow) with McGee Pass off-picture to the left. The center of the mountain block on the ridge just east of Squaw and Warrior Lakes, but the peaks to the left are on the Silver Divide. The left-most dark gray one is Mt. Issac Walton.

This sandy saddle led to Virginia Lake.

My tent site at Virginia Lake. It's on a nice flat (albeit with some scraggly pines) well above the lake. The working part of camp -- cooking and sitting -- was about 50 feet away on granite outcrops.

A Virginia Lake panorama shortly after I arrived. Nice shoreline, but the few campsites down here were too close to the water to be appropriate.

The view up from higher up near camp was excellent too, although I had to walk a little ways to get sight lines fully unobstructed by trees.

Throughout the afternoon this guy was coming and going. After lots of attempts I finally got a good picture and an identification. Osprey.

A little walking around after dinner. This is the view to the west end of Virginia Lake. Below is Cascade Valley and above that, the Silver Divide. Some haze has come in and it's worst in this direction.

An almost dry pond maybe 100 yards from camp. The bands show higher water levels. It's pretty in a way, but this pond is way down.

Just before sunset. The view from the shoreline below camp: a fine place to sit, listen to the waves, and watch the changing colors.

Tuesday, August 18. Perfect light on that reddish ridge across the lake. (Earlier it was dead calm, then a little ruffle came up.)

The trail by Virginia Lake mixes granite and slate.

The "pass" to Purple Lake goes to the right of that hill.

Looking west over Cascade Valley to the Silver Divide this morning. No haze now. My camp was just at the far left, this side of the open granite ridge.

The "pass" between Virginia and Purple Lakes. Two different geologies east and west.

Purple Lake panorama from north of the outlet, looking northeast.

Purple Lake from south of the outlet, looking more-or-less north. (This was taken before the previous picture.)

Note the ornament on the sign. Some day I need to chase up to Ram Lake.

A party was packing into to somewhere up here. Here's their gear.

And here comes part of the party. Others were on foot.

Duck Lake from near the outlet. The low point ahead is Duck Pass. Note the trail at the upper left.

Interesting shallows by the Duck Lake outlet.