Florence Lake, Blayney Meadows, Selden Pass, Marie Lake, Vee Lake, Bear Lakes Basin, Medley Lakes...
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With the entire Mister Toad's Wild Ride portion of Kaiser Pass Road still ahead of us, we set out from our rustic cabin at Huntington Lake's "Lakeside Resort" the morning after Labor Day. "Lakeside" was great but some big bash for all the employees that day meant we didn't get a last hot breakfast, but we dined just fine with granola, milk, and whatever else we'd squirreled away from the store the night before.
I'm going to state it here to put it absolutely on record (even if just my opinion) that the "like backpacking in your car" mostly single-lane-cavorting-as-a-two-direction-road - "Kaiser Pass Road" - is just as fun and "hairpinful" as ever, but from the Y to the two trailheads (Vermillion Valley and Florence Lake), Vermillion still wins for the best nail-biting. Barely, but it does. Unless that's just 'cuz I was driving last time we went to Vermillion, and Julie was driving this time to Florence?
We caught the noon:thirty ferry across Florence (think "motorboat" much more than, say, the Mark Twain Riverboat at Disneyland) and the Pirate at the helm (he wore a bandana with pirates so I can call him that) offered us the deal to save a couple bucks and buy our return ticket too. We declined, partly due to the morning's clever planning to each have our exact $12 in hand, but boy-oh-boy, wait until you hear later how THAT turned out to be the right decision.
Day 1, Hike in to Blayney Meadows - est. 5.6 miles: We stayed on the trail to the Blayney Meadows junction you'd first come to from the east. We've never been that lower route from the junction west of Blayney that must cruise along through the meadows nearer the San Joaquin, but the way we went was probably a bit more exercise (trails go up, trails go down) and it also gave us a chance to talk with two cool rangers doing great work out there and willing to share some good insights.
ROUTE INFO: We were keeping our eye out for where to leave the main trail on its way to Blayney and turn left (north) a bit before it crosses Sallie Keyes Creek. This would be an old trail called the, duh, "Sallie Keyes Creek" trail, and if you want to read lots of amazing information about it, see maps, personal experiences of actual people, there was quite a bit of useful back-and-forth at: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8283" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. We'd already decided to not go up it, but to try to find it and take it for our hike back down... What I can tell you, though, is if you're serious about wanting to get onto this trail going up to Sallie Keyes, don't expect much of a junction at all. Know the topography, where you are, and how you'll be looking to venture off the trail to turn left and north probably just before you pass the last white blob on the standard topo map that's north and west of Sallie Keyes Creek. If you've gotten to the right area you'll end up on vague use trails heading uphill, north and east at first, and eventually see big painted arrows on large granite boulders. I'm not kidding, and I hope those were, uh, painted a long long time ago, 'cuz that was way uncool and it's easier to excuse people who are dead. The following image is a close-up of the only evidence we saw of a marker along the main trail (taken on the way out - we never saw it on the way in).
At the Blayney backpackers' camp we ended up at the site farthest east, and possibly the only site with its very own Yellow Jackets nest. And YIKES I forgot to tell you how at the very beginning, in the trailhead parking lot at Florence, Julie got stung on the hand by a Yellow Jacket. So by the time we found this lovely site (5:30ish pm), her hand was way swollen up. But I don't think it had started itching yet... With very little experience around this Yellow Jacket thing, we remained wary and hoped for the best. And we seriously did not take too many chances riling up those YJ's buzzing in and out of their hole-in-the-ground nest under that downed tree.
Day 2, Blayney (10:15 AM) to Marie Lake (6:30 PM) - est. 8 miles: The cut-off trail from Blayney up to the JMT heading north to Selden seems more obvious than it used to be a couple decades ago, but its steepness is still quite intact. It seems that right at the junction with the JMT there was quite the kerfuffle of hikers gathered going this way and that, and I can't quite explain how out there in the wilderness it suddenly seemed crowded and like everybody was in everybody else's way. Odd but friendly, and we did escape unharmed.
ROUTE INFO: A ways past where Senger Creek crosses the JMT on our way to Sallie Keyes, Heart, and Selden Pass, we watched for a marked x-country junction. We'd talked to a solo hiker coming down the trail who we got curious about the Sallie Keyes Creek trail back down. Sounded like he does trips in the area quite a bit and was going to look into that sometime, and he said he had passed a junctionish spot that must have been it. Well, we never spotted any "for sure" spots for turning off the trail, but figured we could still look or just make a go of it on our way out.
We had a late lunch at Sallie Keyes at a prospective camp and it was closing in on 5 PM. I remember Julie had a headache, her Yellow-Jacket-stung balloon hand had started itching, and we were both a bit weary. (Yes, to many reading this, the word "wimps" might gurgle to mind about now, but did I mention we're both well into our 80s? A nice little lie to fool you into some extra sympathy, but seriously, neither of us are spring chickens... Unless you know any spring chickens in their late 50s.) The bottom line was we'd really hoped to have cleared the beautiful pass and get parked at Marie Lake that second night in, and after some lunch and drugs (a spot of caffeine can help a headache, especially when I dole it out as a half-caplet and call it "meth"), we both felt up to trekking to one of the most majestic passes in the Sierras. We found our old JMT-2008 camp at Marie for a glorious sunset followed (hours later) by an equally glorious sunrise.
Day 3, Marie Lake (10:45ish AM) to lakelet (5:30 PM) where "trail" east to Vee turns south towards Seven Gables Lakes - est. 7.2 miles: From Marie north on the JMT down to Bear Creek eventually had us at that sometimes-a-ford water crossing just before the junction up to Vee Lake (sign says "Seven Gables Lakes," and also "CAUTION: HAZARDOUS TRAIL"). Bear Creek there was crossable on the rocks, and did I mention we love the sticks? Trekking Poles. Light Leki's... Started using them for JMT-2003 and have never looked back.
ROUTE INFO: We were looking to cut a corner and do a very known x-country route that on maps looks to head east from the trail about a half mile before you get to the crossing of Bear Creek and the junction (a half mile of losing els), and yes we found some trail markers and started off that way at one point, but then we had a doubt or three and enough prior experience of wandering whilst not sure where we were that we hopped back on the trail. We did the shortcut on the way back, which if you use the HST Map at this location and check the "Trails (Not Maintained/Routes)" box, you'll see it. Very green. And especially with the USA Topo tab on the map selected, you see this thick green line heading for the trail heading mostly west, leaving the East Fork of Upper Bear Creek and the trail where they (well, the trail anyway) head northwest. That thick green line is a route from Honeymoon Lake on the East Side north of Bishop to the JMT.
ROUTE INFO: The trail from the junction up to the Seven Gables area is a bit unmaintained, but really pretty darn good, easy to follow and easy to hike. Except for one tiny tiny section. And that part was made even more dicey 'cuz we had some light rain. And just as you're getting to this section from either direction, you are treated to a very reassuring and very huge duck. Duck... Trail marker... "Cairn" in the full Wikipedia sense of the word. Are these markers from either direction saying, "yes, believe it or not, this is the trail," or are they perhaps rock pile monuments to honor (or even entomb?) others who tried to go this route? The fact is, it is the route, and while many might hardly slow down, it was a packs-off, scurrying around, oh-no-it's-raining-wet-and-slippery episode for us, the solution of which ended up being my lowering each pack down an alternate drop - other than the main "hiking" chute - and our eventually getting all straightened away again to wonder, "That, uh, was the worst part of this trail, right?" It did turn out it was the gnarliest, but there was still some "huh?" stretches to come.
Camp was at a lovely and lively little lake with great views of the southern end of the Seven Gables peaks, and somewhere I read that for rock-climbers, those peaks actually offer the more interesting routes. From that last "route info" section, clearly "rock climbers" is not something for which either of this trip's two hiker-critters could be mistaken.
Day 4, "Jumping Fish Lake" (10:30 AM) to Vee Lake (2 PM) - est. 3.5 miles: A beautiful area and fairly obvious where you need to go, following the water up to the first of the Seven Gables Lakes, and then turning east and loosey goosey up to the outlet of Vee Lake.
ROUTE INFO: Yeah yeah, I know - not this again! But really, I think it could be useful to point out that if coming up this "trail-route" from the JMT without camping at the Lakelet, you'd be fine to stay west of the water running from Seven Gables Lakes, and at the first point where the water goes through a tricky narrowing, you do stay west of it and hike up a bit. There are markers going higher, but try to keep to the ones that stay lower or you'll just end up having to shimmy back down. (Yes, we know this from experience.) Eventually you'll drop down to the water (uh, try not to do that literally) and rock hop just on the south side of the narrowing. (Well, rock hop in September...) Where you cross you're right at the creek coming down from Little Bear Lakes. When you get to the next narrowing before the first Seven Gables Lake, you will want to stay to your left on the east side of the water. Well, that's what we did, and yes the route was dicey and a bit nail biting in places, but doable.
ROUTE INFO: East from the inlet to that north-most Seven Gables Lake is a part of a "trail" you see that goes east up a gully directly to the outlet from Vee Lake. I think we were right to peg that visible part of a "trail" as a Ulysses sort of Siren Song. We x-country'd up to Vee using a book description and heading south from that first Seven Gables Lake then swinging east and eventually northeast to where the top of that gully gets to, and then just a short walk to the Vee outlet. Well, that short walk only after clambering up to a nice knob-peak overlook just south of the top of the gully for lunch and views. I do see the "green line" HST Maps route from Honeymoon Lake to the JMT apparently just loves that gully and goes right through it. I will add here a bit of info from later in the trip (spoiler alert) that we thought we'd take the gully down, and at one point I took off my pack and clambered a ways farther down to see if there was just the one section of rock-climbing type negotiations with the giant boulders we'd come to, possibly then with clear sailing on a lovely little trail switch-backing through the gully... But no. I saw enough of continuing huge-boulder-clambering to know the gully wasn't for us.
Julie at that knob-peak overlook
At Vee we camped on the north side of the lake, and for how open it all is, there really aren't, like, a lot of campsites. We did get to talk to a couple from Merry Old England who were passing through from Bear Lakes Basin and heading for... Feather Pass? Lasalle Col.? One of those... (They hadn't trekked all the way from the British Isles, but like others we ran into up in that Vee/Bear Lakes Basin area, they were venturing thru via loops from the east side.)
We did scout around some for a less exposed campsite, but eventually figured out we were in the catbird seat for that side of Vee. Our site was great and our water access after a short walk down to the lake was perfect with a bit of a peninsula, the west facing end of which had a nice granite "beach" for getting in and out of the water. We did swim and get cleanish, but it was kind of cat-and-mouse with some light rain versus enough sun to get dry and warm. Ice cold water and then a breeze doesn't add up to "warm" but it does add up to "dry", and if one doesn't have the warm layers to put on to get warm at that point, then one really shouldn't be up there at the 11,163 feet els, eh?
Day 5, Bear Lakes Basin day-hike - est. 7 miles: Oh boy, a day-off filled with nothing but meandering through the beautifulness and enjoying an easy pace exploring-all-the-closer the tarns, the granite nooks, the flowers growing out of crannies, the various critters bounding about on land, darting underwater, fluttering in the air... and all the while with no backpacks riding on our shoulders like 35 pound monkeys. I'm not sure what monkeys normally weigh, and we did have daypacks, of course. With the occasional sprinkles and sometimes-light rain, you gotta have a daypack on a day-hike. So, well, "8 pound monkeys" with water and food?
Pretty much north from our camp at Vee up to the ridge is, I think, close to the "thick green line" route from the JMT to Honeymoon Lake before it cruises through Bear Lakes Basin after trekking up from Vee, and fortunately there is no trace of any intense green line when you're there. But come to think of it! There did happen to be an amazing crazy-with-green-lichen-covered... rill? Well, let's go with "rill" 'cuz it sounds fancy, even though it was just a little stream tumbling down to... I think Big Bear Lake? Anyway, so much intense green lichen up and down the stream, but alas, it was pretty much perpendicular to where the conceptual HST Maps green line route runs, so probably not the inspiration for the color.
ROUTE INFO: Our meander from Vee Lake to as far as Bearpaw Lake in Bear Lakes Basin for both directions went kind of parallel to the two Little Bear Lakes, and by a downright gorgeous little tarn about half way between the lower Little Bear Lake and Vee Lake, then over the ridge about half way along the north shore of Vee. There did, though, look to be plenty of routes through the various wrinkles in the peaks betwixt Ursa Lake or Big Bear Lake and the northeast end of Vee Lake (top-o-the-left-side-of-the-V). And indeed we did see some of the x-countryers we'd run into at Bearpaw appear at that far end of Vee after we were back at camp.
I don't think I said a word at the end of the Day 4 description, but both sunsets at Vee were to die for. Some weather meant some clouds and some clouds meant lots of spectacular sky formations for some insane sunset lighting. Pretty awesome in every direction!
TR - Marie Lake and Vee Lake areas, September 2012
- richapple
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Re: TR - Marie Lake and Vee Lake areas, September 2012
Very nice TR and pics RichA. Thanks for sharing your adventure. I love that area of the SIerra and have hiked out of Florce several times. I had heard some folks got cutoff by the draining of Florence last year. Not all that hard to hike around, but it had to have been a tough adjustment, because your body was thinking it was done for the trek. How did you go? Back track to the trail, or did you hike the lake bottom out? I believe the pretty little trout in your Medley Lake vid is a Golden Trout, not a Paiute Cutt. Not aware of any Paiutes there, but then again Ive been surprised more than once before!! Again, thanks for sharing your TR.
Once in a while you can get shown the light
In the strangest places if you look at it right.
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In the strangest places if you look at it right.
The Grateful Dead
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Re: TR - Marie Lake and Vee Lake areas, September 2012
Thanks very much Troutdog, and holy cow (holy fish?), you are so right about the trout identification. Makes sense you would know! When I thought I found the side pattern to match the Paiute Cutthroat I was puzzled 'cuz Wikipedia said they are only native to Silver King Creek pouring into the Carson River up north, but then I thought, "native" - so maybe they have been used to stock all sorts of other high lakes...
But yeah, Goldens for sure with those spots on the top and tail being a big difference. Thanks!
We did hike back to the trail. Had to have another look at that Frisbee at the junction. The hike way around the lake on the trail was scenic, and we figured trying to negotiate the terra firma and rock available to hop scotch a more direct route (without sinking into what must be near-quicksand where the water had been) could even take us longer...
But yeah, Goldens for sure with those spots on the top and tail being a big difference. Thanks!
We did hike back to the trail. Had to have another look at that Frisbee at the junction. The hike way around the lake on the trail was scenic, and we figured trying to negotiate the terra firma and rock available to hop scotch a more direct route (without sinking into what must be near-quicksand where the water had been) could even take us longer...
richapple
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Re: TR - Marie Lake and Vee Lake areas, September 2012
Fantastic TR with cool photo's and video's! The whole Bear Lakes region has so
many delightful surprise around every corner. Feather Peak is a very photogenic
peak which you did a nice job with in your pictures, as you did with Marie Lake
which can show many different faces depending on the weather conditions. Thanks.
many delightful surprise around every corner. Feather Peak is a very photogenic
peak which you did a nice job with in your pictures, as you did with Marie Lake
which can show many different faces depending on the weather conditions. Thanks.
Professional Sierra Landscape Photographer
I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.
Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member: http://reconn.org
I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.
Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member: http://reconn.org
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Re: TR - Marie Lake and Vee Lake areas, September 2012
Thank you for your detailed description and photos. I love this area as well.
-Nick
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