The personal and professional website of Douglas Van Bossuyt
After climbing up the hill from Portal Lake, we stopped at Pearl Lake for the night. The glacial erratic rock on the moraine of Pearl Lake near the outlet makes a great place to camp. People have been camping here for thousands of years. In the past, we found evidence of miners and sheepherders camping here plus abundant evidence of Native American occupation.
Pearl Lake in all her glory. There are several good places to camp around this lake. In the heyday of backpacking in the 70s, there would have been at least a half dozen parties around the lake. We were probably the first people to see this lake this year.
On the downslope side of the boulder we camped next to there is a little flat spot big enough for one person to get out of the weather. It is well-used.
Our campsite setup for the night. It would be easy for someone to walk by and not even notice us.
Alpenglow on the peaks of Blackcap Basin. The mountain to the left of center was once named Little John by a coworker of my father when he was at Michigan State. It was a joke but the name stuck for several years when my dad was a wilderness ranger in this area. I don’t know if people still call it Little John but at one point in time, that is what it was called.
The sun sinking over the shoulder of Blackcap Mountain.
Night settling in on our little camp on the moraine at Pearl Lake.
After coming out of Crown Basin, we briefly stopped at Portal Lake to take a few photos before the mosquitoes tried to carry us away.
It’s a pretty lake that used to see many people camping at it but these days not that many people visit anymore. This time of year, the bugs can be overwhelming. Later in August once the mosquitoes have subsided, Portal Lake is a lovely place to base camp to hike to all of the other lakes in Blackcap Basin. We pushed onward toward Pearl Lake rather than hang around in this mosquito paradise.
