TR: Monarch Lakes, Sawtooth Pass, Lost Canyon, Franklin Pass
Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 3:08 pm
A buddy said "let's go." We pulled out maps and found that Mineral King had no fires (Kings Canyon is full of smoke, Yosemite is hazy with smoke) and he had not been over Sawtooth... so off we went. D and I have been on one other outing together before. And then C wanted to come, neither of us had backpacked with her, but she's younger than us, and probably good to go. I knew her from Search and Rescue trainings - she's gone through rough terrain with a pack before.
We headed up Friday afternoon. The trailhead from the first switchback looked like this:
After filling out a form and dropping it in the slot (no one home at the ranger station and we are able to self register) we parked in overflow - wow, there were a lot of cars out there on a Friday mid-day.
Clouds were with us the whole four days. They were like living things, crawling up and down slopes and sometimes curling or laying out flat or bunching up - I could have taken pictures for hours and never gotten the same one twice. Any mist or haze you see in my pics? it's clouds, rain or snow.
We went up the switchbacks toward Monarch Lakes in the on and off rain, which at one point turned to sleet. Our paces were totally different and we were spread out on the trail, D sometimes stopped and waited, I caught up to him, and then we both waited patiently for C. As the sleet worsened we were all three holed up under a foxtail which kept the worst of it off. We reached Monarch well before sundown despite starting after one pm.
Lower Monarch Lake has the bear box but we camped at upper - behind the dam for a wind break. It turned out that the dire warnings of the drenched couple we met coming down were not true tonight, they had said "freezing" and "very windy" and we had a nice breeze with temps in the low 40s.
Next morning we started up Sawtooth.
Between those two images, there lies an hour and a half of class 3/4 action, during which I wanted to just let the pack fall to the bottom and get the heck down. There's a maze of use trails and I ended up on the wrong one, and not being a mountaineer, just a lowly hiker, I was dismayed to find myself hanging on to any solid item in arm's reach to keep myself from joining tons of loose decomposed granite and rocks on the way down a very steep slope. I finally made it across and up to the use trail - which is fairly well established, if you find the right one - and rejoined D as I reached the pass, where I endured the "I've been waiting for an hour" complaint and informed him if he didn't hike so fast I wouldn't have lost him in the boulder field and been unable to follow him on the trail.... C was similarly lost in boulders. But we made it and lesson learned.
Got to Columbine Lake without issue but had to put on rain gear again as the clouds descended. We passed a tent where someone had obviously hunkered down. Fifteen minutes later we were beyond Columbine, heading down the switchbacks into Lost Canyon, and the rain stopped. We camped at the trail junction down canyon, at the turnoff to Big Five Lakes. More rain drove us inside, which was sad, as it was the only camp below 10k and we had a nice toasty fire going.
Next day had us traversing around to Soda Creek and up the switchbacks (a respectable climb!) to Little Claire Lake. I took some shots from the switchbacks as the clouds were letting me see some distant and close up peaks pretty well, and then took a shot from the top:
Another climb and then a drop to Forester Lake, and on to the trail junction at Rattlesnake Creek where we stayed the night - poised to get over Franklin Pass in the morning. The clouds cleared and we were stargazing in awe. It was awesome. About 40-45F and tons of stars visible. After we climbed in for the night, the clouds must have come back... the next time I woke there was a crazy lightening show going on! It lasted for hours. I kept dozing off and each time I woke up again, it was still going. Next morning it was overcast/shifting clouds again, with moments of sun - and then the snow came down for ten minutes, piling corn snow all over the ground.
It stopped as we began to hike. On the way up the pass, it looked threatening and then cleared off... repeatedly. I looked back down Franklin behind me at one point:
Another shot showing how the clouds kept changing and moving (Whitney was visible part of the time):
We ate a snack on the pass and booked it down toward Franklin Lakes, where we took another break in the sunshine before heading down into the cloud layer. We could look out at the central valley and see that we would be going home to weather.
Franklin Lakes:
Looking back at Franklin Pass:
Much later, looking up at Farewell Gap:
As we descended it was like walking into coastal fog. Mist everywhere. Weary and damp, we got to the bottom and dodged bear scat down to the road, walked past people standing on the porches of the cabins idly staring (I wondered why they did not have the sense to wear jackets, T shirts in the chilly rain?).
I had hoped for sun in the aspens... but perhaps next trip.
I very much enjoyed the hike. Lots of elevation gain and loss, like any Mineral King outing, but well worth it, and late in season we saw only five groups/couples backpacking and a handful of dayhikers. And a wet grouse who posed for pictures.
Full size images plus the rest of the trip photos here
We headed up Friday afternoon. The trailhead from the first switchback looked like this:
After filling out a form and dropping it in the slot (no one home at the ranger station and we are able to self register) we parked in overflow - wow, there were a lot of cars out there on a Friday mid-day.
Clouds were with us the whole four days. They were like living things, crawling up and down slopes and sometimes curling or laying out flat or bunching up - I could have taken pictures for hours and never gotten the same one twice. Any mist or haze you see in my pics? it's clouds, rain or snow.
We went up the switchbacks toward Monarch Lakes in the on and off rain, which at one point turned to sleet. Our paces were totally different and we were spread out on the trail, D sometimes stopped and waited, I caught up to him, and then we both waited patiently for C. As the sleet worsened we were all three holed up under a foxtail which kept the worst of it off. We reached Monarch well before sundown despite starting after one pm.
Lower Monarch Lake has the bear box but we camped at upper - behind the dam for a wind break. It turned out that the dire warnings of the drenched couple we met coming down were not true tonight, they had said "freezing" and "very windy" and we had a nice breeze with temps in the low 40s.
Next morning we started up Sawtooth.
Between those two images, there lies an hour and a half of class 3/4 action, during which I wanted to just let the pack fall to the bottom and get the heck down. There's a maze of use trails and I ended up on the wrong one, and not being a mountaineer, just a lowly hiker, I was dismayed to find myself hanging on to any solid item in arm's reach to keep myself from joining tons of loose decomposed granite and rocks on the way down a very steep slope. I finally made it across and up to the use trail - which is fairly well established, if you find the right one - and rejoined D as I reached the pass, where I endured the "I've been waiting for an hour" complaint and informed him if he didn't hike so fast I wouldn't have lost him in the boulder field and been unable to follow him on the trail.... C was similarly lost in boulders. But we made it and lesson learned.
Got to Columbine Lake without issue but had to put on rain gear again as the clouds descended. We passed a tent where someone had obviously hunkered down. Fifteen minutes later we were beyond Columbine, heading down the switchbacks into Lost Canyon, and the rain stopped. We camped at the trail junction down canyon, at the turnoff to Big Five Lakes. More rain drove us inside, which was sad, as it was the only camp below 10k and we had a nice toasty fire going.
Next day had us traversing around to Soda Creek and up the switchbacks (a respectable climb!) to Little Claire Lake. I took some shots from the switchbacks as the clouds were letting me see some distant and close up peaks pretty well, and then took a shot from the top:
Another climb and then a drop to Forester Lake, and on to the trail junction at Rattlesnake Creek where we stayed the night - poised to get over Franklin Pass in the morning. The clouds cleared and we were stargazing in awe. It was awesome. About 40-45F and tons of stars visible. After we climbed in for the night, the clouds must have come back... the next time I woke there was a crazy lightening show going on! It lasted for hours. I kept dozing off and each time I woke up again, it was still going. Next morning it was overcast/shifting clouds again, with moments of sun - and then the snow came down for ten minutes, piling corn snow all over the ground.
It stopped as we began to hike. On the way up the pass, it looked threatening and then cleared off... repeatedly. I looked back down Franklin behind me at one point:
Another shot showing how the clouds kept changing and moving (Whitney was visible part of the time):
We ate a snack on the pass and booked it down toward Franklin Lakes, where we took another break in the sunshine before heading down into the cloud layer. We could look out at the central valley and see that we would be going home to weather.
Franklin Lakes:
Looking back at Franklin Pass:
Much later, looking up at Farewell Gap:
As we descended it was like walking into coastal fog. Mist everywhere. Weary and damp, we got to the bottom and dodged bear scat down to the road, walked past people standing on the porches of the cabins idly staring (I wondered why they did not have the sense to wear jackets, T shirts in the chilly rain?).
I had hoped for sun in the aspens... but perhaps next trip.
I very much enjoyed the hike. Lots of elevation gain and loss, like any Mineral King outing, but well worth it, and late in season we saw only five groups/couples backpacking and a handful of dayhikers. And a wet grouse who posed for pictures.
Full size images plus the rest of the trip photos here