High Sierra Topix

Hi

My wife and I did the Alta Meadow, Moose Lake, Pear Lake loop last week and were curious if anyone knew when maintenance of the trail form Alta Meadow to Moose was discontinued. I know the trial is shown on 1956 quads. Great trip!

Maintenance stopped sometime before 1969. That is the first time I hiked that route (as a Boy Scout on an outing from Camp Wolverton). Even then the trail petered out shortly after Alta Meadow.

rscofield,
stevet has me beat by several years, but I can confirm that my first time on that route in the early 70's it was pretty iffy after Alta Meadow. There were spots along the ridge overlooking the lower lakes that were still pretty well worn, but the stretch through the forest would have required a skilled scout to find the old trail. Anyway, if you have photos, please post 'em!
cg

Thanks. My wife and are guessing that the trail was built before WWII and probably not maintained since 40s. Scenery and hike are great but the history is interesting too.

Three of us just did this hike on the last day of a 7 day trip. We went from Moose Lake to Alta Meadow. Our leader is a skilled route finder and navigator. He spotted traces of the trail in the first initial descent down to a spring in a meadow--there were no switchbacks, just a plunge down the hill. He saw that it looked like it went up and around a meadow. We went through the meadow, though, and after a short while found a clear, fairly wide tread on the other side, about a mile and half or so from Alta Meadow. The trail even had a constructed rock step in one place. It was fairly easy to follow after that, with some small branches and other debris on the trail. It was obvious it hadn't been maintained in a long time.

We followed it to Alta Meadow where there were several cairns indicating where it leaves the meadow, if you are heading for Moose Lake. Someone had placed several logs across the trail at the end of the official maintained trail section, perhaps to keep unskilled day hikers from getting lost if they tried to follow it into Alta Meadow. Our leader still felt it would take some route-finding skill to keep to the old trail. We enjoyed the hike through the forested section and even startled a bear at the spring.

When we did Moose as an overnight one weekend, we crossed Alta Meadow to the creek that flows down a U shaped channel (this is a really obvious landmark) then worked our way up the creek to the granite slab. From there I shot a bearing with the compass to the saddle where the old trail hit the top. We intersected with the old trail right where the cairns are. I had a photocopy of the old USGS topo that shows the trail on it - an experienced backpacker of my acquaintance gave me a copy of the map since back in the day he collected multiple copies of the quads. The topo map is dated in the 50s.