Matterhorn / Kerrick Area Questions

[frozenintime]

some friends and i are thinking of heading around the hoover/yosemite matterhorn/kerrick region this coming season.

we had our first off trail excursion last september (around humphrey's and over carol col) and are ready for more. maverick suggested this area as a next step, and indeed it looks perfect. i'm thinking of pointing us down slide canyon all the way to smedberg lake, and then back to twin lakes on trail. little slide canyon could be fun, too.

a few questions:

1) for the on-trail section of the loop, would you recommend the matterhorn/east or kerrick/west side? (and why?)

2) i doesn't look like there are many bail out points between the top of slide canyon and smedberg lake. the western wall of matterhorn canyon looks impassable on the topo. i gather rock island lake is reachable from slide canyon, but for whatever reason that area doesn't look that appealing in the photos i've seen. am i missing other options?

3) is there good reason to go the other way (i.e. first half down matterhorn or kerrick, and then smedberg lake back up slide)?

4) little slide canyon looks great, and would be a way to repeat ourselves even less. given the choice, would you do it going up or down? i'm guessing up.

5) people complain a *lot* amount about mosquitos in this area... are they significantly worse than the rest of the high sierra? by which i mean: they should be fine by labor day, no??

6) if our pace was ~10 miles/day on trail, and given the (...modest?) difficulty of the off trial sections in little and big slide canyons, does 6 days seem about right?

thanks!
looking forward

[balzaccom]

We've hiked in this area a bit...

1. I love the big open spaces of Kerrick Canyon. Makes you want to sing. But the hike up Matterhorn Canyon towards Burro and Mule passes is simply spectacular.

2. I'd agree with that. There is supposed to be one route through the Sawtooth ridge...But I don't know where, or how easy it is.

3. See my answer to #1.

4. I'd go up. I always like going up and possibly tricky route, because there is less chance of getting in a pickle. But that route is supposed to be relatively straightforward.

5. No worse here than anywhere else. Later in the season is always better.

6. Yes.

[wildhiker]

Hi frozenintime,

I agree with Balzaccom that Matterhorn Canyon is far more spectacular than Kerrick Canyon. However, the Kerrick Canyon route does let you visit Benson Lake, which has a spectacular sand beach but is down in a hole 2000 feet below the ridges on either side. I saw it once as a young man in the 1970s but have not been tempted to visit again due to the big climb out. I would definitely do Matterhorn Canyon again because it is just a beautiful hike the whole way on a good grade.

I remember the cross-country hike from Smedberg Lake to Slide Canyon and up to be an easy one-day hike EXCEPT for "The Slide" at the head of Slide Canyon. The whole west slope broke off in ages past and tumbled down to the bottom of the canyon and then up about 400 feet on the other side. It's a jumbled mess of boulders, many room or even house size, about 1/2 mile long. We tediously worked our way through this mess at creek level. In retrospect, I think it might be easier to climb above the slide on the east wall of the canyon.

As for the route, from Smedberg Lake, we diagonaled up the slope on the east side of the lake, crossing the outlet stream from Sister Lake just below it, then climbed the gradual slope north of Sister Lake to a low pass and then headed down the forested drainage to Doe Lake. We passed Doe Lake on the west side (climbing up on the low granite ridge), then walked up the slope northeast of Doe Lake to a low saddle leading to the Camp Creek drainage. We walked down the forested slope along Camp Creek to the bottom on Slide Canyon and then had a delightful walk up canyon along big meadows and lightly forested areas with numerous great campsites. But then, there is "The Slide". We camped before it and tackled it in the morning.

-Phil

[frozenintime]

thanks guys!

yeah, i've read about the slide that gives the canyon its name, and most at this site do seem to say that going up and over it as much as possible on the east side is best. benson lake is definitely appealing but might wait for another trip? probably can't go wrong either way.

my partners like shorter mileage, so a rough itinerary might look something like:
1: twin lakes up little slide, camp at maltby or top of slide canyon
2: down through slide to doe
3: doe to smedberg, east on trail to bottom of matterhorn canyon somewhere
4: up matterhorn to the lakes below finger peaks
5: to barney lake?
6: back to twin lakes

(or we could shorten this by a day if days 3 and 4 were a bit longer.)

[TehipiteTom]

I have a trip report covering Little Slide Canyon to Slide Canyon to Rock Island Lake, in case that's useful. I thought RIL was gorgeous; YMMV.

Something like this might be another possibility:
1) Up LSC to Maltby or Ice Lake
2) Over to Slide headwaters then over Burro Pass and Matterhorn
3) Down Matterhorn Canyon to the trail, then cut off trail at Wilson Canyon to Tallulah
4) Tallulah to Slide Canyon, or maybe continue to Rock Island lake
5)-6) Out to the trailhead

[oldranger]

Post labor day in a wet year is the ideal time for northern Yosemite!

[balzaccom]

Those small lakes below finger peaks are shallow and exposed. But we found nice quite campsites along the creek in the woods about a mile or two further down the trail...

[frozenintime]

thanks for the tip about those lakes. there's not a lot to distinguish matterhorn canyon topographically, so those lakes just stuck out as a semi-random place to aim for

[maverick]

Have camped at those lakes, perfect spot for sunset photography, especially of the Sawtooth Ridge and some shots from the top of Burro Pass looking down the MC.

[wildhiker]

On our trip in 2006, we found a great camp in the upper basin of Matterhorn Canyon south of Burro Pass at about 9700 ft elevation, with great views of sunset color and alpenglow on Matterhorn Peak and Whorl Mountain.

Also, for planning purposes, you are no longer allowed to camp at Barney Lake. There are some great campsites on the little hillock on the NE side of Crown Lake with views of all the mountains and you can make it out to Twin Lakes trailhead from there in 3 to 4 hours (depending how long you stop to enjoy the beach at Barney Lake :-).

-Phil