North Lake to Florence Lake

[jorrflv]

Adventure A. A lot of travel over blinding bright white sun cupped unpleasant snow fields with boring frozen lakes. No way you will cross the San Joaquin River at 8k without swimming. Adventure B avoids that. Not a wise itinerary this 2017 year mid July but fine after mid August. As for Humphreys Basin per recent reports there is still a huge amount of melting snow in that high basin that by mid month may be at peak melt. The ability to cross Piute Creek at Hutchinson without considerable danger now that snow bridges are likely all melted out is likely questionable unless someone reports otherwise.

David,

Do you have a suggestion for an alternate route Between North and Florence Lakes?

Jon

[AlmostThere]

Piute pass has snow at the top, down to about the junction of French Canyon. Two young fit gentlemen I met on the trail below the bridge told me the stream crossings in Piute Canyon were EPIC. Meaning quite dangerously high. Also, jillions of trees down over the trail.

[SSSdave]

There really are not options. The summer trail across French Canyon Creek crosses where several branches of the stream spread out so it may not be as dangerous as I wrote as it has been many years since I was in Humphreys thus cannot write from recent experience. I'd expect French will be half the size of Piute Creek at that point that the trail never crosses. When one has the option to search up and down those branch sections to find the least unpleasant place to wade across, there is more opportunity to find a safer ford so it may just mean some exploration on your part.

David

[Wandering Daisy]

Sorry, but the route maps are not very clear to me. Plan A looks to go over Lamark Col. SSS Dave, where would you have to wade across the San Joaquin for that route? The only wading crossings of significance that I can see are the creek from Darwin Canyon, Evolution Creek at Evolution Meadow and Sanger Creek just past Muir Trail ranch. There are three bridges across the San Joaquin. So I am confused. Perhaps a written description of the route would help.

Plenty of PCT hikers have gone from Evolution Lake to Florence Lake. Their recent reports indicate that they cross Evolution Creek at a different location than where the trail shows the crossing, and it is not that bad, at least, not as bad as it has been reputed to be. They also have formed groups to travel through the Sierra and that really helps when doing a long deep river crossing. No swimming as such as been reported.

As for the feasibility of route A, that depends on your skills and experience. If you have never waded a deep long swift crossing you may not want to do this until the creeks subside. I would also be a bit leery of doing these crossings solo for another few weeks or so.

[jorrflv]

Sorry, but the route maps are not very clear to me. Plan A looks to go over Lamark Col. SSS Dave, where would you have to wade across the San Joaquin for that route? The only wading crossings of significance that I can see are the creek from Darwin Canyon, Evolution Creek at Evolution Meadow and Sanger Creek just past Muir Trail ranch. There are three bridges across the San Joaquin. So I am confused. Perhaps a written description of the route would help.

Plan A and B are both the same for the first 4 days....

Day 1 North lake - Lamarck Lakes
Day 2 Lamarck Lakes - Lamarck Col - Evolution Lake
Day 3 Evolution Lake - Wanda Lake - Cut over to Davis Lake and down into Goddard Canyon
Day 4 Goddard Canyon over Hell for Sure Pass

Plan A
Day 5 Up Mosquito pass trail over mosquito pass and down towards San Joaquin river... (This is the crossing I think he is talking about) not sure if we can cross there... then Plan A is toast
Day 6&7 up the San Joaquin River to florence lake

Plan B
Day 5 Up Mosquito pass and over to Reddy's Hole and then over to Red Rock Basin
Day 6 - Red Rock Basin to Thompson lake via Burnt Corral meadow
Day 7 Thompson Lake to Florence Lake

Plan C not shown on my maps
Day 5-7 Hell for sure trail to Post Coral Medows to Brunt Corral Meadow to Florence Lake

[AlmostThere]

Hell for Sure will be under snow. Heck, there was snow in the canyon over the Goddard trail...

[Wandering Daisy]

Thanks for the route description.

Why not just stay high in Red Mountain Basin and then return over Hell For Sure Pass and go down Goddard? I do not see much quality for the last part of the route over Mosquito Pass- Goddard Canyon is much more scenic. Or just day-hike to upper Red Mountain Basin, if that is an area you really want to see. Mosquito Pass down to the San Joaquin looks pretty miserable, even if you could ford the San Joaquin.

Also, the transportation logistics of North Lake to Florence Lake are really difficult. How is that going to happen? Not sure the route is worth this much time and money just to get back to the start.

[jorrflv]

The transportation is where this trip was born... my son is going to scout camp at Huntington lake the week of the 24th. Me and a friend are being dropped off by my wife at north lake and the scout troop can pick us up and give us a car on the other side... so transportation is not the issue... in fact we are using the situation to do a route we wouldn't normally do, and is quite unorthodox.

We also though it would be good to sharpen our skills at some route finding, and now crampon and ice axe skills due to the heavy snow fall this year.

[rlown]

Do you have an expert with you for crampon and ice axe skills? In other words, can you read snow and ice?

[SSSdave]

Hmmm? I was confused too after cgund was confused too. And I blame him thinking it was a plan you didn't have a map for. Well er I should have read your post and ignored his haha. Your route will be fine by late August but this 2017 mid July...nada


But as to your route B besides what I said about plan A swimming across the San Joaquin. All that route up to Wanda and by Davis is just going to be a vast unpleasant sea of bright white sun cups with few trees and little shade. At least dropping down into Evolution Valley you will have trees, greenery, mostly open ground with just snow patches. After tromping through miles of snow to reach Lamarck Col, I doubt the novelty will be interesting anymore. Admittedly as a photographer, I prefer fresh fallen mid winter powder snow landscapes. And even if you do go by Davis, which I have done in August, and dropping down into the canyon, I can't understand the interest in climbing way way up to Hell-For-Sure Pass only to find another vast sea of white sun cups in Red Mountain Basin. Nope much more pleasant once down into Evolution Valley to spend a day or two there, then drop down out of the valley, into the San Joaquin River Canyon and spend time there. A terrific zone with gnarly Sierra juniper, wildflowers, whitewater cascades. Heck at the Piute Creek junction you could spend a day hiking up towards Hutchinson Meadow before continuing down towards Florence.

David