John Muir described the SIerra Nevada's intricate meadows as "so complete that you cannot see the ground and, at the same time, so brightyl enameled with flowers and butterflies that it may well be called a garden-meadow, or meadow-garden."

I'm fascinated with meadows...as well as waterfalls, bridges, geology, my dog, Yoo-hoo, and fail videos...not in that order. This hike to Blayney Meadows was hoping to have some of those goodies (obviously not the fail videos) and I was excited to hit the road.

Blayney Meadows is in the heart of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, about 4 miles east of Florence Lake (90 miles East of Fresno)...which if you haven't been out there, is smack dab in the middle of BFN (bum-f#%k-nowhere). But that's why we all go out to the wilderness right? The seclusion? That and for the Instagram photos of course. If you don't take a photo, did the hike even happen?!

The hike was easy, I had mapped it out a few days previous, but here are the final stats for when we finished up. It was about ten miles withvery little elevation gain (which I loved), and the weather was looking to be nice and sunny. A perfect Sunday for a hike!

Definitely not a tough hike at all. We had plans and aspirations to end the hike at one of the hot springs in the area, but I'll expand on why that was a total bust in a bit.

To get the day started:

My buddy and I left the house right around 8am to try and catch the Florence Lake Ferry by 10:30. From Tollhouse it is about 55 miles to Florence, but the last 9 miles of the road is a fun, exhilarating, awesome (I'm being sarcastic about all of this) long adventure. It's a one lane road, that is tore up to shit, and is bouncy as all hell. Seriously, I wanted to jump out and walk the rest of the way. Learn from our mistakes...ya idk. Just be prepared.

But...at the end of the road, you're greeted with beautiful Florence Lake. I guess it makes it all worth it in the end.

The original trail from Florence to Blayney Meadows is about 18 miles. Luckily, there's a ferry that runs across the lake during the day, which cuts off 8 miles of the trek, turning this overnighter into an easy day hike. The ferry is $25 dollars, and you purchase your tickets at the awesome little store right in front of the lake. And don't be late! Ferry times can be found here.

As always, I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking!

And then here's where we hit a snag. You see, the hot springs are right on the other side of this river. It looked a little hairy, but was probably doable. We both had some expensive ass cameras though, and no protection for them, so we decided to play it safe and just find a good spot to eat lunch by the river. Just an excuse to come back another day =D

We had to catch the ferry at 5pm or else we would have had to add on another 4 miles to get back to the truck. So we packed up, and high-tailed it on out of there.

Gotta get the corporate shoutout photo yakno! Venforth. — Gotta get the corporate shoutout photo yakno! Venforth.

Hard to beat this view at the top of Kaiser Pass.

And that's all folks!

Thanks for reading up, or looking, or if you just accidentally stumbled here...thanks? All about those page views baby!

-J