TR -- Enchanted Gorge & Cartridge Pass July 1975
Posted: Mon May 18, 2020 5:22 pm
This post is intended to replace the one I posted in 2010, which included links to photos hosted by Photobucket. Those links are messed up now because Photobucket changed their policy of hosting photos for free and I didn't agree to pay to play. The original post and reader comments can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4775&hilit=july+197 ... ridge+Pass
This was my first real experience with cross country hiking. Until then, I had kept mainly to established trails, exploring Yosemite National Park (1970 – 1972), hiking the John Muir Trail (1973), and doing the South Lake – North Lake loop (1974). I day-hiked up to Knapsack Pass (in Dusy Basin) in 1974 and it occurred to me then that it would be fun to explore routes where no trails existed. I spent much of my free time the following school year (my senior year at U.C. Berkeley) pouring over topo maps and concocting ambitious plans.
This hike was planned as a two-part trip, with me hiking solo for the first 14 days in the area around Mt. Goddard, then meeting up with a brother and friend for another 10-day leg. How I came up with the route is a mystery to me now, all these years later, but to say it was ambitious is putting it mildly. With almost no off-trail experience, I found myself tackling both the Enchanted Gorge and the entire Cartridge Pass trail, two of the hardest cross-country routes in the Sierra Nevada.
I was on a shoe-string budget, with barely enough money to buy food for the trip and too poor to pay for the ferry ride across Florence Lake. I did have a good quality backpack (a sturdy North Face external frame pack) an all-season sleeping bag (a North Face Superlight down bag) and an OK stove (a Gerry LP gas stove). I liked the idea of long hikes, where you could immerse yourself in the backcountry and I worked hard to keep my pack weight down. I couldn’t afford fancy freeze dried meals, so I bought all my food at the grocery store: dehydrated box dinners, dehydrated soup, Top Ramen, sharp cheddar cheese, dried salamie, instant breakfast powder, dehydrated milk, fig bars, granola bars, trail mix, peanuts, crackers, dried fruit, and lots of Wyler’s lemonade mix. I carried a large garbage bag for a poncho and relied, as I still do today, on a plastic tube tent (1 lb.) for foul weather. On July 10, 1975 I left Sacramento at 3:00 am and arrived at Florence Lake around 10:00 am, driving the old beater Plymouth Valiant that served me so well throughout my college years. I couldn't afford the ferry toll, so walked the length of the lake, camping that night beside the south fork of the San Joaquin River, just above where it flows into Florence Lake. It was a hot, muggy day -- close to 90 degrees. Mosquitoes swarmed as the sun disappeared.
Friday I hiked to the Piute Creek/Muir Trail junction, where I laid my heavy pack down in utter exhaustion after only eight miles. The mosquitoes in Blayney Meadows were awful (I had a phobia about using mosquito repellent and would only use it in the most extreme of circumstances). I practically had to run up the trail to avoid being eaten alive, and even this hardly helped. No matter how often I rubbed my hands over my arms, shoulders, face, head, and neck (I did this in a continuous routine), the mosquitoes would always reappear. At one time at least 30 had lighted on my shoulder at the same time. It was miserable.
But the Piute Creek camp was delightful and mosquito-free. I spent the night there and met a group (father, mother, son, sister, son's friend) and I hung out with them. Despite my heavy backpack, I couldn’t resist the lure of real food, so I ate dinner in their camp (canned ham, bread, corned beef, etc.) and we enjoyed the evening together.
Saturday at 8:00 I started on my way and by 2:00 PM reached a beautiful spot just below Martha Lake. After lunch, I read my book (Nana by Emile Zola), then made dinner and enjoyed a cigar as I watched the stars. I had worked up some blisters on my heels on Friday, but they settled down and didn't bother me once I put some moleskin on them.
On the 13th, I hiked to Martha Lake, then headed to the Ionian Basin, working my way high up on the shoulder of Mt. Goddard, above the more obvious route, which dips through a convenient opening in the granite wall and then proceeds through snow up and over a ridge leading to the lake basin. My high route wasn’t any more efficient, taking me only slightly higher and north of the same ridge. and up into the Ionian Basin. I camped just below Mt. Goddard, on a flat ledge in a small ridge between several lakes, perched high in the basin. There was no running water, but plenty of snow and sunshine. I filled my Nalgene water bottles and my cooking pot with snow and in a little while there was plenty of drinking water. It was a perfect setup for lemonade snowcones! On Monday the 14th, I took a break from the heavy backpack and scrambled up the side of Mt. Goddard, where I was rewarded with spectacular views from the summit. I lounged on the summit, eating lunch and sipping a few cups of lemonade slushies. Set apart from other Sierra peaks, Goddard offers one of the finest views in the Sierra. To be continued . . .
This was my first real experience with cross country hiking. Until then, I had kept mainly to established trails, exploring Yosemite National Park (1970 – 1972), hiking the John Muir Trail (1973), and doing the South Lake – North Lake loop (1974). I day-hiked up to Knapsack Pass (in Dusy Basin) in 1974 and it occurred to me then that it would be fun to explore routes where no trails existed. I spent much of my free time the following school year (my senior year at U.C. Berkeley) pouring over topo maps and concocting ambitious plans.
This hike was planned as a two-part trip, with me hiking solo for the first 14 days in the area around Mt. Goddard, then meeting up with a brother and friend for another 10-day leg. How I came up with the route is a mystery to me now, all these years later, but to say it was ambitious is putting it mildly. With almost no off-trail experience, I found myself tackling both the Enchanted Gorge and the entire Cartridge Pass trail, two of the hardest cross-country routes in the Sierra Nevada.
I was on a shoe-string budget, with barely enough money to buy food for the trip and too poor to pay for the ferry ride across Florence Lake. I did have a good quality backpack (a sturdy North Face external frame pack) an all-season sleeping bag (a North Face Superlight down bag) and an OK stove (a Gerry LP gas stove). I liked the idea of long hikes, where you could immerse yourself in the backcountry and I worked hard to keep my pack weight down. I couldn’t afford fancy freeze dried meals, so I bought all my food at the grocery store: dehydrated box dinners, dehydrated soup, Top Ramen, sharp cheddar cheese, dried salamie, instant breakfast powder, dehydrated milk, fig bars, granola bars, trail mix, peanuts, crackers, dried fruit, and lots of Wyler’s lemonade mix. I carried a large garbage bag for a poncho and relied, as I still do today, on a plastic tube tent (1 lb.) for foul weather. On July 10, 1975 I left Sacramento at 3:00 am and arrived at Florence Lake around 10:00 am, driving the old beater Plymouth Valiant that served me so well throughout my college years. I couldn't afford the ferry toll, so walked the length of the lake, camping that night beside the south fork of the San Joaquin River, just above where it flows into Florence Lake. It was a hot, muggy day -- close to 90 degrees. Mosquitoes swarmed as the sun disappeared.
Friday I hiked to the Piute Creek/Muir Trail junction, where I laid my heavy pack down in utter exhaustion after only eight miles. The mosquitoes in Blayney Meadows were awful (I had a phobia about using mosquito repellent and would only use it in the most extreme of circumstances). I practically had to run up the trail to avoid being eaten alive, and even this hardly helped. No matter how often I rubbed my hands over my arms, shoulders, face, head, and neck (I did this in a continuous routine), the mosquitoes would always reappear. At one time at least 30 had lighted on my shoulder at the same time. It was miserable.
But the Piute Creek camp was delightful and mosquito-free. I spent the night there and met a group (father, mother, son, sister, son's friend) and I hung out with them. Despite my heavy backpack, I couldn’t resist the lure of real food, so I ate dinner in their camp (canned ham, bread, corned beef, etc.) and we enjoyed the evening together.
Saturday at 8:00 I started on my way and by 2:00 PM reached a beautiful spot just below Martha Lake. After lunch, I read my book (Nana by Emile Zola), then made dinner and enjoyed a cigar as I watched the stars. I had worked up some blisters on my heels on Friday, but they settled down and didn't bother me once I put some moleskin on them.
On the 13th, I hiked to Martha Lake, then headed to the Ionian Basin, working my way high up on the shoulder of Mt. Goddard, above the more obvious route, which dips through a convenient opening in the granite wall and then proceeds through snow up and over a ridge leading to the lake basin. My high route wasn’t any more efficient, taking me only slightly higher and north of the same ridge. and up into the Ionian Basin. I camped just below Mt. Goddard, on a flat ledge in a small ridge between several lakes, perched high in the basin. There was no running water, but plenty of snow and sunshine. I filled my Nalgene water bottles and my cooking pot with snow and in a little while there was plenty of drinking water. It was a perfect setup for lemonade snowcones! On Monday the 14th, I took a break from the heavy backpack and scrambled up the side of Mt. Goddard, where I was rewarded with spectacular views from the summit. I lounged on the summit, eating lunch and sipping a few cups of lemonade slushies. Set apart from other Sierra peaks, Goddard offers one of the finest views in the Sierra. To be continued . . .