Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

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AaronRDavis
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Re: Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

Post by AaronRDavis »

sekihiker wrote:
AaronRDavis wrote:My plan is to follow that xcountry route from Wishon(Rancheria) to Portal lake on day 1.
day 2 follow Finger pass into goddard creek, camp at lake 10232.
day 3 explore ionian basin
day 4 climb goddard, then head west over valor/confusion pass and into blackcap.
day 5 return to wishon via xcountry trail.
Wow! Studly!

Does this sound a little too ambitious? We have "ultralight" packs so the mileage is pretty doable, especially cutting out a lot of trail on the first and last days. I suppose as an alternative we could just take Reinstein pass out of lk 10232 and then traverse over to Valor and back over into blackcap and just do a lot more fishing. From what everyone says I feel I would regret not seeing Ionian.
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Wandering Daisy
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Re: Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

"numerous backpack trips and some x-country experience" is probably not enough experience to achieve the ambitious goals you have set. If you had said "extensive" off-trail experience I would say OK. You need to be an expert micro-navigator/route finder to quickly get through the tricky terrain in the Ionian Basin. It is not heavy packs, rather the nature of the off-trail travel that will slow you down. I find it better to plan for more days, giving me some contingency. Then if I go faster, great, but if weather, or whatever happens I have some cushion of safety. If you go during thunder storm season, you need to hit the passes before afternoon storms. None are safe places to be during storms. I do not know what your situation is, but I have come back to work a day late due to a backpack trip and never got fired. I never feel compelled to finish a trip exactly on time. Safety always comes first. I would stick to your original route plan and just add a day or two.

By the way, I was just up at Portal Lake. Do not go up to Cathedral Lake and Finger Pass directly from Portal Lake. Go up to Pearl Lake (there is a use-trail) and then do a short traverse. There is a huge rock cairn on the "pass". There is a faint use-trail on this route too. See map. Also, you cannot drop directly to the lake on the east side of Finger Pass due to cliffs. The map shows a route that works.

[rimg]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg23 ... routes.jpg[/rimg]
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AaronRDavis
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Re: Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

Post by AaronRDavis »

Points taken, and thank you for the info about Finger pass.
I have an extra day at the end that could be a buffer before I have to be back to work. If Ionian seems too daunting, might just take Reinstein pass to Martha lake and just add a day of exploring Blackcap basin. Or just traverse the NW area of Ionian near lk 11818 en route to Goddard.
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jmherrell
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Re: Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

Post by jmherrell »

I have done the direct route from Portal Lake to Midway Lake several times -- easy class 2, much shorter. I did cross the stream a couple of times. I haven't used the Pearl Lake variation but early season with snow or high water I would assume that Pearl Lake would be better.
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Re: Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

The Pearl Lake route is Class 1. It is longer but depending on logistics, it may not matter. If you plan on camping at Portal Lake, it is only a half hour up to Pearl Lake. Finger Pass is about the same distance from Pearl Lake as Portal Lake. If on the other hand, you are hiking through, it would be shorter to use the Portal Lake direct route. The route looked a lot harder than easy class 2 when I looked at it (I was dead tired when I looked at it so my brain may have not been working very well). One look and it was "no way, Jose" and decided to figure out a better route later. Good to know that it is not as hard as it looks. However, being short and small, I find that some "easy" class 2 stuff is really harder for me if blocks or little cliffs have to be climbed.
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jmherrell
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Re: Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

Post by jmherrell »

The Portal to Midway route is definitely easier than it looks but only if you can use both sides of the stream.
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sekihiker
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Re: Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

Post by sekihiker »

jmherrell wrote:I have done the direct route from Portal Lake to Midway Lake several times -- easy class 2, much shorter.
So have I and this is a low water year so it should be easy.
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Re: Trip advice, Wishon to Goddard. What else?

Post by AaronRDavis »

Headed out tomorrow, thanks for the information everyone.
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