Hobbes wrote:oldranger wrote:Key is the description of the boundary on the nw corner of the map: "Divide Between Cherry Creek and Eleanor and Falls Creeks".
But does the mystery lake drain into Kendrick which then becomes Eleanor? That would put the lake within the Yosemite side of the divide. I've looked closely at both aerial satellite views & flipped G-Earth over sideways, and as Daisy suggested, it looks like it could very well drain both ways.
If you zoom all the way in on the little round tarn just below the lake (sort of like Sicily by the boot of Italy), does it drain to the tarn right next to it (slightly to the NW)? Or is it just an upper catch basin for the main part of the lake which then drains to the NE when full?
It really seems like somebody (or a group like a meet-up) needs to go up there, pour about a liter of water on the ground between the two tarns and observe (and possibly film) which way the water flows.
I concluded the same thing. It is not possible from the maps or Google Earth to figure out whether the surface drainage is to the NE or the SW or both. What is likely is that when snowmelt is at its peak there is surface drainage in both directions, and when snowmelt is over there is surface drainage in neither direction.
For the NE: There is haphazard jackstraw to the NE and a small, dry snowmelt pond. In the trapezoidal basin that butts up against the granite to the NE there is a low point more visible from Google Earth through which the water may drain, and possibly a fallen tree or granite berm that looks like it may be a kind of intermittent dam, and a sketchy line of bushes below. It looks like snowmelt accumulates in that NE area and seeps over the lip to the NE.
For the SW: The SW "Sicily" tarn is definitely connected to the main lake. One question is whether the SW "Sicily" tarn drains to its NW to the other "Corsica" tarn. I'm not sure it does. The granite between them looks pretty dry for that satellite pic. On the other hand, there is an inlet from the main lake that may connect to the Corsica tarn during snowmelt--there seems to be bare dirt and jackstraw rather than granite linking the inlet with Corsica. During heavy snowmelt that area would be inundated.
In just looking at vegetation, it is clear that there is more water coming down to the SW from Corsica than going to the NE from the main lake; this water feeds the tributaries of Fawn Lake and Kendrick Creek. See, for example, the inlet stream snaking into the tarns to the NW of Fawn Lake. It looks substantial in the satellite pics. I'd be inclined to take that as evidence that the bulk of the drainage goes SW to Kendrick--although it is probably more seepage than surface stream in the immediate vicinity of our lake.