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TR: Labor Day Gold

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 10:50 pm
by windknot
I've been itching to get to this basin for a while now and thanks to descriptions from forum members like giantbrookie, Buck Forester, and cmon4day over the past few years I had at least a vague idea of what to expect. The steep climb and spotty trail coupled with the sheer beauty of these alpine lakes promised a magical weekend, and so on Saturday morning we found ourselves at the trailhead chomping on homemade breakfast burritos and gearing up to hit the trail.
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The first stretch was a hot, steep grind. It gains about 1500 feet of elevation in less than two miles right off the bat, and doesn't really let up until it reaches the first lake. As we climbed higher we began to lose the trail and so after about a mile we decided to ditch it completely and hoof it cross-country up to the lake. This involved some serious sidehilling.
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Taking a much-needed break.
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More climbing..
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And more resting.
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Finally, the welcome sight of the lake.
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Alpenglow in the evening. I need to invest in a digital SLR; my pictures don't do these places justice.
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The next lake up in the chain and a quick scramble up from camp.
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The view on the way back down.
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En route to our next destination.
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A gorgeous lake.
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Mt. Hooper looming above.
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The fishing was excellent at all three lakes. The catching was a bit more temperamental, but we still managed to get into lots of feisty, colorful goldens.

Here are a few representative fish.
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I did manage to hook into one decent-sized fish, my new personal best golden.
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Unfortunately, all too soon it was time to pack up and head out.
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We finished with a completely off-trail descent back down to the roadhead to conclude a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. The best part was that we only ran into one party (a dayhiker and his dog) during the entire Labor Day weekend. Even after over 6,000 feet of total elevation gain and loss, I'm already itching to leave on a four-day, mostly off-trail backpack I have planned for later this month.

Thanks for reading!
Matt

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Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:05 am
by cmon4day
Hey Matt,

Awesome trip report and nice pictures as well. Makes me want to get back into my beloved mountains. I love your personal best. That's a nice fish. When I was there we camped at Harvey Lake. In your TR you mentioned you XC'd all the way down. Which way did you go? The terrain gets pretty rugged below Gordon.

Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:36 am
by Buck Forester
Fantastic photos and trip report! And some nice goldens too! It sounds like the 'trail' leading up has faded even more because although it got steep and spotty at times, it was still follow-able. It's been about 4 years since I've been there now. On one of my trips I did what you guys did, bush-whacked all the way from Chamberlain down to the road. I remember following the drainage most of the way. It was getting dark so about 1/2 of my hike was in fading light and about 1/4 of it was in complete darkness. It gets rugged and steep the further you go down, ha! I scratched my eyeball real bad on a branch at one point, and had to dance around steep ledges using my headlamp to find a doable descent route in places. It was a great adventure, just me and my two dogs. After I finally made it to the dirt road I wasn't 100% sure where I came out so it took me another 45 minutes of wandering the roads to find my parked truck. Man... now that I'm married with two young kids and my dogs are gone, that seems a lifetime ago!

Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:15 pm
by hikerduane
So much country, so little time. Thank you for the photos and report. Love the kids acting up.

Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:51 pm
by Codester
Awesome adventure and beautiful country! I love the color of those fish. Especially the silvery color of that big golden!

Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:08 pm
by maverick
Nice TR to a place not frequently visited and Chamberlain is pretty lake.
Windknot have you visited Apollo, Cirque, and Depressed Lake area yet, if not
this is a gorgeous area one of the highlights west of the Mono Divide.

Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:35 pm
by MountainMinstrel
Great trip report. Those Goldens make me consider getting a fishing license again.

Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:11 pm
by windknot
Thanks for all the comments, guys.

Cmon4day, coming down we followed pretty close to Chamberlain's outlet creek (dry this time of year) almost down to the intersection with the creek coming from the adjacent drainage, then cut west, dropping to the flat northwest of that unnamed lake at around 9700 ft (I thought about checking this one out, but we were on a pretty tight schedule so I'll have to save it for next time), then following the easiest topography from there nearly directly down to the diversion dam. Brush wasn't too bad for the majority of the route and while some stretches were steep it never got to the point that we had to turn back and find another way down, so it ended up saving quite a bit of time over going back to Gordon and the trail, as well as being much more fun.

Buck, thanks for the entertaining memories. I can see how following the creek all the way down would get nasty on that last descent, we tried to avoid it by skirting west and that turned out to be a much easier route (saw some stone ducks, so others have done this as well). The first part of the trail was definitely followable but we lost it after about a thousand feet of gain so at that point we gave up and just made a go of it from there.

Maverick, I haven't been to the Cirque-Apollo-Orchid area yet but it's high on my to-do list. Have you ever gone in there by way of Hooper Basin? It looks like Depressed and Cirque may be reachable by way of a diagonal ascent from Harvey.

Matt

Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:39 am
by SSSdave
I've had a modest interest in climbing up there because those lakes are unblocked by any ridges further west, thus can potentially have excellent alpenglow if the air is also exceptionally clear. Unfortunately it may be clear for a few miles but is usually not so dozens of miles west over the Central Valley. I've always expected the main use route up to those lakes follows somewhere up along the Gordon Lake outlet creek. That is because most novice backcountry users pay little attention to topographic map terrain steepness and instead tend to simply follow streams. In this case the obvious better less steep route is well away from that outlet stream and instead up towards Chamberlain Lake. That does not mean following the exact Chamberline outlet stream either all the way but rather the least steep vertical line to line sections while avoiding some expected brushy zones.

Re: Labor Day Gold: Hooper Basin TR

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:37 pm
by windknot
Interesting point, Dave. On first glance, it appears that the logical route to take would follow Hooper Creek all the way from the diversion dam up to the lower lakes in the basin. However, the gentlest topography is either first to the north of the roadhead (where the stock trail climbs some 1500 feet up toward the Infant Buttes) or to the south (where several stone ducks indicate that hikers headed toward Chamberlain prefer this route) rather than to the east. We ascended to Gordon following the general route of the stock trail, and from Chamberlain followed the gentlest topography back down to the diversion dam.

Now I'm trying to work out the best way to hit Cirque/Apollo/Orchid and I'm exploring different approaches from both the west and south, perhaps again kicking off at the Hooper Diversion roadhead. I'd love to try to make a loop that goes through the Cirque/Apollo area, around to Rose, then up over Crazy Pass down into Hooper Basin and out.

Matt