High Sierra Topix

Having just come down the Taboose trail, I was struck by what looked like remnants of an old trail on the North side of the creek in the area where the current trail crosses the creek to the South side. The first crossing is at ~8400 ft and it crosses back to the North side around 9200 ft. Kathy Wing posted some nice photos of these crossings earlier this year. Anyway, I have a 1937 edition of the Whitney 30' map that shows the Taboose trail exclusively on the North side of the creek (ironically, only part of the Taboose trail is on the Whitney map, the rest is on the Big Pine 30' map). Obviously, this means that the current trail was created sometime since the 1937 map came out. Does anyone have any idea when this happened?
cg

From the 1954 Climber's Guide to the High Sierra

Taboose Pass (11,400+). Taboose Pass offers an approach to the Upper Basin of the South Fork of the Kings, but it is little used and has fallen into disrepair. Animals must be led over several stretches of jumbled talus blocks. It is a long, dry climb. To reach the foot of the trail turn off Highway 395 about 16 miles north of Independence on the first dirt road north of Taboose Creek. Keep to the right after passing through the drift fence and drive to the end of the rocky road. The trail is signed and leads to the north. Camp can be made in the flat below the falls at about 8,800, or at the last timber at about 10,500.

Draw your own conclusions....suggests to me if it was improved at all, it was improved after 1954 at the very least.

Also it I think on it... the north side of that canyon, which will obviously hold snow a bit longer....is chock full of very steep talus...I wonder if a trail ever existed there and if the map is just plain wrong....also if it did exist there, could have easily been taken out in a talus slide.

After7,
OK, that makes sense; along with the fact that the old remnant trail tended to be far from water, it definitely was obliterated in places by rock slides. I figured that the re-routing avoided the worst slides and gave access to water.
Thanks!
cg

Sorry to bump a 5 year old thread, but I have something to add.

Had my first trip up Taboose Pass this past weekend and the water was raging. Deciding against making the first crossing (which currently is the second crossing due to very large flow), but not wanting to end the trip altogether, we boulder hopped and bushwhacked on the north side of the creek to see if we could find another crossing. To our surprise, we found remnants of a built trail. The trail was overgrown in parts, but very obvious.

Through my own research (which is how I came across this thread) I found that the trail in its current placement first appears on the 1985 Aberdeen and 1985 Mt. Pinchot topos, and the trail on the north side of the creek (the old trail) last appears on the 1978 Mt. Whitney topo.

Anyway, happy to finally identify the trail we observed on the north side of the creek and share that information on this old thread.

WOW, Peter! Thanks for sharing this information!

-Russ

Hi Petercarey,

Welcome to HST! Thank you for that information. Could you please post a map, on a caltopo for example, on which you outline the old trail.

Have hiked up the northern side of the trail to by-pass the crossings, from around the 8200 ft level level to the 9200 ft level, where the trail just crosses the creek and then continues up the last part to the top of the pass. Had seen something that could have been a trail but did not pay to much attention to it, but with all the rockslide covering it with talus, it was hard to tell. Now I would like to know, whether it was the old trail or not.

.....

Vaca Russ wrote:WOW, Peter! Thanks for sharing this information!

-Russ

No problem! I'm glad you enjoyed!

maverick wrote:Hi Petercarey,

Welcome to HST! Thank you for that information. Could you please post a map, on a caltopo for example, on which you outline the old trail.

Thank you for the welcome! Here is a link to a CalTopo I created with what I consider to be the 'visible' portion of the trail. There are certainly sections within the visible portion on the map that are covered by brush or rocks. Disclaimer: this was my first time using CalTopo so I hope it worked.

https://caltopo.com/m/2RG6

Teresa Gergen wrote:
I found the old trail in June as well. Saw an old horseshoe on it somewhere.

That's pretty cool! We definitely noticed evidence of recent use but we chalked it up to game traffic. Perhaps there have been many people with the same idea upon seeing that creek crossing!

Thank you for the welcome! Here is a link to a CalTopo I created with what I consider to be the 'visible' portion of the trail. There are certainly sections within the visible portion on the map that are covered by brush or rocks. Disclaimer: this was my first time using CalTopo so I hope it worked.

https://caltopo.com/m/2RG6

Yep, that is the area where I saw portions of it too, thanks for posting it.

Hi Everyone,
I just stumbled across the responses to this thread, and thanks to all for the updates! Having had the unexpected pleasure of stumbling across an old trail on a descent from Lamarck col back in June, I can attest to how great it can be to find a route that saves gobs of bushwhacking and slipping and sliding. Anyway, I'll aim to take a closer peek the next time I'm in that canyon. cameron