Graveyard Pass

[hawkfeather]

Hikerduane,
I hope your dream trip turns out great. I think we all try to do as much as we can, as we can.

Paul,
Thank you for the URL. Graveyard Pass doesn't get a listing, but there is one for Warrior Ridge on the possible route between Hortense and Warrior. It actually sounds pretty good. More head scratching....

[giantbrookie]

Giantbrookie,
Your #3 alternative sounds interesting, but I sure wouldn't want to do it in 5 days! (What was your #2, btw?) My reason for debating between Blackcap Basin and this loop that would take in Hortense is that we'll be spending the previous week in Mono Hot Springs. When our 2 kids were young, we used to go up there every summer, and we'd always see these multi-generational families in the campground. Now that our kids are grown up and have families of their own, it seemed a good time to take part in this grand tradition. Me, I like to eat 'em! But, anyway, on the morning we all pull out, it's a short hop for us to go up and catch the Edison ferry if we settle on Hortense. Blackcap would be an appreciably farther drive on the starting end, but we could still hoof it out at the end and drive home in one day, allowing us a catch-up day at home before we have to return to the regular world. And then there's where we'd really like to go--and haven't been--that would make a nice weeklong trip. So we'll see....

The no.2 alternative (as conceived at the time--I've since modified this one) was to start at Bear Diversion dam, to to Cirque Lake, then Apollo, Orchid, and Three Island, then over the hump to Lower Turret Lake with a side trip to Pinnacles Creek then a long off trail route that briefly catches the JMT but leaves it and eventually works its way around to Chamberlain Lake. This would have been a shuttle with one car at Hooper Diversion and one at Bear. After learning about the semi official trail to Marcella, Cirque et al. I am rethinking this one with the goal of focusing more time in the Lower Turret-Pinnacles Creek area (more time spent in trailless country, the better). That trip was ended up the 2008 runner up also. In 2008 it was aced out by what became the "Tunechuck" epic, but will now rotate to no. 1 in 2010 (no big trip for me allotted in 2009).

As for distances from Mono Hot Springs to the Blackcap vs Peter Pande-Hortense, etc., of course Edison is much closer to Mono Hot Springs, but the kickoff for Blackcap is a hour or so shorter drive out (to the common point in Shaver) that is Edison, so you make up a little of the time difference coming out.

[hawkfeather]

giantbrookie wrote:
The no.2 alternative (as conceived at the time--I've since modified this one) was to start at Bear Diversion dam, to to Cirque Lake, then Apollo, Orchid, and Three Island, then over the hump to Lower Turret Lake with a side trip to Pinnacles Creek then a long off trail route that briefly catches the JMT but leaves it and eventually works its way around to Chamberlain Lake. This would have been a shuttle with one car at Hooper Diversion and one at Bear. After learning about the semi official trail to Marcella, Cirque et al.....
************
Chamberlain Lake is really pretty, set in a nice cirque. What I remember is that there's a bit of sandy beach going into the water, which is very attractive if you've just struggled up there on a hot day. We did it as a day hike loop by traversing over to Hooper Lakes, the lowest one, and then taking a pretty good use trail back to Hooper Diversion Dam.

Now what's this about a semi-official trail to Marcella, etc.? I remember awhile back that there was some discussion of a route visiting that string of lakes above Bear Creek; I even took part in it. But my memories of that area are very distant; it would have been back in the 1980s when we spent several hours thrashing around on the slope above Bear Dam looking for a route that went that way. The most we found was a kind of depression (not a bench) that we followed for some distance along the slope before it petered out. If it had been a trail/road at one time, it wasn't anymore. But things change--and it's also true that we had far less experience with xc travel back then, so we may have simply been looking in the wrong place! You've reminded me though that this was also an area of interest to us, so maybe we'll start thinking about it as plan C. Regaining trail somewhere beyond/below Orchid (the map is downstairs), we might hop up to Seven Gables Lakes. That's one of my all-time favorites.