Last weekend my family and I went camping at a place called Saddlebag Lake. Situated east of Tuolumne Meadows, west of Ellerly Lake, and just north of highway 120, Saddlebag Lake is at 10,000 feet, and is supposedly the highest drive-to lake in california.

We left quite late thursday night: about 10pm, and arrived around 3am. The drive was quite mellow -- little traffic, good weather, and it wasn't hot crossing the central valley.

The two mile road up to Saddlebag Lake from 120 is mostly hardpack dirt with a fair number of washboard bumps. Some sections of the road are paved (just like those dashed "proposed highway" lines on a road map). When we finally did make it up there, we discovered the 22 site campground was full, so we hung out in an overflow parking area till light. I took a few looks at the stars before catching a few Zzzs. It was very clear. More on this in a moment.

The next day we hunted down a campsite and took in the scenery. At 10,000 feet there is alot of granite up there. Jeffery pines and grasses surround most of the campsites.

The day was clear and sunny till about 4pm when several thunderstorms came rolling through. My wife and daughter were napping in the tent while I sat out under some trees with an umbrella. I know.. "not such a good idea in a thuderstorm", you say? Well.. most of the lightning was hitting the upper granite peaks. It was neat to watch these peaks getting zapped, and hearing the clappers and rolling thunder.

Around dinner time the skies cleared, so I set up the 8" dob on the grass near the campsite. By nightfall it was cloudless. (Just as I had expected.) I had trees to the east, but the view wasn't totally blocked out. To the west, the ridgeline was about 10 degrees up (maybe). The milky way to the south was clear all the way down below sagitarrius. A high power look at the setting moon showed that the seeing was ok -- some wobbles, but not bad. Likewise with Jupiter, but I didn't spend much time looking at the planets. When the moon set, it was very starry. As expected the Milky Way was visible down to the ridge (about 18 degrees) in the northeast. Also visible and well defined were the dark lanes in the milky way.

At first I was a little concerned with the other campers and light. A car looking for a campsite came through once, and I got blinded once by someone looking for the bathroom. However, just about everybody was asleep by 10:30pm, and by 11:00pm it was quiet and all the lights and fires were out.

I spent some time looking at the bright stuff: The ring and dumbell nebula. I was also waiting for the scope to cool a little -- I had left it in a sleeping bag all day, not a good idea - but the collimation was good even after the long bumpy trip.

Everything seemed bright. The dumbell looked like a bright football. I had no problem seeing the dark lanes in the trifid, and the neck of the swan nebula was very well defined and high contrast. I also looked at the bright globulars in sagitarius, and spent an hour or so just poking around in the milky way at 48x.

I also did some galaxy hunting in the Ursa Major. M51 was an easy find. I switched to 100x for a better view. Then over to M101. I have always had a hard time seeing M101 at montebello or even the peak. Probably the light polution. At Saddlebag M101 was well defined, yet still dim. I then went down to M108. While looking for it I stumbled across something else.. had to check the charts -- it turned out to be M97. I also viewed M109 and M81/M82.

One thing I didn't count on was the cold: At 10,000 feet it must have gotten down around 40F or less around 1am. At this point I took a chair and walked down a bit past our local trees to a clear view of the eastern sky for some binocular viewing. Unfortunately, I didn't last long... I zonked out not much later.

The next day we packed up and drove down to Mono Lake to check out the Tufas. While at the Mono Lake Vistor Center I noticed that they host a small 1.5hour night sky interpretive program on sunday and thursday nights.

It was a good trip.. I'm ready to go back -- but maybe to someplace a little warmer.