Lake Catherine TR

[Shawn]

This was an attempt at either Banner or Ritter, but I never made it that far. I got to meet Kathy (Wingding) along with Harry L, Peter and Charles. It was great to be among these people in the mountains, I really felt privileged.

http://www.theradioroom.org/LkCatherine ... herine.htm

[Snow Nymph]

Good trip report!

We did both Ritter and Banner a month apart, and took 3 days for each trip, but from Ediza.

[Lucrativ]

Good effort , good judgement . "next time"

[Trailtrekker06]

Great pics and report! That boulder pile is awful, I made it as far as Lake Catherine, too. whew!

[SSSdave]

Shawn I quite enjoyed your chronicle and pictures of the trip. You can hike along with me anytime and won't have to worry about running after me as it will likely be the other way around haha. I've been up at the pass a couple times and explored some of the lakes on the backside of Ritter beyond Catherine. Places of talus, snow, shadows, and sky mountaineers like but way too sterile for my preferences. On my recent trip with a friend up in the Shadow and Minaret Creek areas, we did the infamous traverse I'd done before in 1982, carefully making our way across the 800 foot long snowfield beside Iceberg Lake. One slip could have resulted in sliding into the icy lake, so sans crampons, waited till about 3pm when the snowfield had warmed up. Even with the softer surface used my big tripod for stability. Then continued on the tedious route in the talus beside Cecile Lake. We had to climb up an extra 300 feet around another even steeper icy snowfield beside that lake. By time we downclimbed on the steep route to reach Minaret Lake, I was pretty much in wimp mode the rest of that day.

Your picture on the way out with Thousand Island Lake in the background shows a good crop of roseroot glowing red in the backlit light. Its that time of year with salix arctica aka arctic willow, and roseroot adding color to high turfy areas of the Sierra and I am all packed up tonight about ready to leave on a trip with one of my brothers up over Lamarck Col to see just some of that. ...David

[Shawn]

Thanks all for the comments. No doubt I'll be back.

SSSdave - I literally just popped over here from SummitPost after having voted a "10" on your Isosceles Peak image. You sure have a talent for photography. I did not know the name of those red "roseroot" flowers but I sure admired them along the way.

[wingding]

Great trip report and pictures Shawn. It was a pleasure hiking with you.

Peter and I thought about waiting until the glacier warmed up a bit, but I was feeling the altitude and knew that I would move really slow on the way up to Banner, which would have us getting back to the trailhead at about 10 pm with a 5 to 6 hour drive ahead of us. I was torn at first about leaving without doing Banner, but by we got back to the trailhead at 4:30 pm I was glad that we decided to head out without attempting the peak and I was really glad we didn't try to follow Harry and Charles to Ritter. I'll go back next year when I have 3-days to do it - that looks like a nice route to Banner.

We took a slightly different route out than in and checked out Garnet Lake, which was very pretty. After Garnet Lake it was a hot, dry, and dusty hike to Agnew Meadows.

Here are some of my pictures:


http://kathywing.smugmug.com/gallery/1827493

I know Harry is going to have a good story and pictures to share too.

[Buck Forester]

Great report, fine pictures! That Catherine Lake is beautiful!

[Ozark Flip]

Thanks for the TR and pics Shawn. I really enjoyed reading.

About 4 years ago I camped a few nights on the creek between Shadow and Ediza lakes. We fished Shadow, Ediza, Iceberg, Nydiver and Cabin lakes on that trip. The two peaks (Banner/Ritter) look so peaceful from Ediza but then I read Snownymph's trip report of climbing each.

Snownymph - Didn't Snow Dude get hurt climbing one of the peaks???

BTW - Don't go to Cabin lake unless you want to beat your body to a bloody mess. I was very difficult to get to.

[wingding]

To me, the trek from Ediza Lake to Banner would be more difficult than getting there from Lake Catherine. It's just that the backpack in to Lake Catherine is long (approximately 13 miles) and then there's the boulder field to cross at North Glacier Pass. I think Ritter climb would be difficult no matter which direction you come from.