High Sierra Topix

Star Col

GENERAL OVERVIEW: This col provides a cross country route between Desolation Lake in Humphrey's Basin and Star Lake above French Canyon.

CLASS/DIFFICULTY: Class 1-2.

LOCATION: Sierra National Forest/John Muir Wilderness. Star Col on the HST Map

ELEVATION: ~12,120 ft

USGS TOPO MAP (7.5'): Mount Tom, CA

ROUTE DESCRIPTION: Starting from the outlet of Desolation Lake, head north past Wedge Lake and ascend the easy slopes toward (and past) the small tarn's below the pass. The pass is the low point between peak 12225 and 12350. From the pass, head northwest down the boulder field towards the south end of Star Lake. North slopes class 2. South slopes class 1.

PHOTOS:
Looking northwest from the summit of Star Col at sunrise. The northwest boulder field leading down to Star Lake can be seen in the foreground.

ok.. So in Sept '11 Paul and i decided we wanted to fish the East side of French. We did Star col. To add to this thread here are some pics.

We spent lunch at the top debating on whether to just do puppet pass down, and looked around the top (first 3 pics)
This snowbank ends in a cliff, and a few usable chutes if you're coming up.
We ended up close to where Copeg took his picture for a route down. We even found ducks heading down.
This next picture gives you an idea of the scale looking back up towards where the first pics were taken. We came straight down from behind where Paul is sitting. We did have to take off the packs twice to get down between some huge boulders.
The ducks we found petered out just as we hit some benches/cliff stuff (go figure), which was scary for a few. That was about 1/3rd down the col. after that it was ok.
It's doable but Puppet is quicker, even with the wrap-around from there to Star.

I found this to be much harder than Puppet Pass and even a little scary, although part of that might have been because I was descending in a hail storm.

View from Star lake