Trip Advice: Ansel Adams

[udpumpkin]

Thank you for all of your advice!

[Dave_Ayers]

There are several camp spots along the north side of Ruby Lake with plenty of room for 7. I don't recall many spots at Emerald Lake. There is also flat ground at the far western end of 1000 island between the main lake and the tarns, I camped there once. And there are spots at Badger Lake too, though that may be slightly out of your path.

[udpumpkin]

Thanks. I'll put Ruby Lake down as a possible alternative to Thousand Island. Badger Lakes may be a little out of the way from Thousand Island but could be an alternative to Clark Lakes.

As an aside, are there any day hikes in the vicinity of Nydiver, Thousand Island and Clark Lakes that people would recommend? Maverick mentioned Davis Lakes. Would getting from Thousand Island to a point that overlooks Lake Catherine be feasible for a day hike? I imagine we would have 3-4 hours of daylight to burn on some days after setting up camp. Would a day hike from Nydiver to Ediza and possibly to Iceberg be feasible?

Again, really a bunch of novices in good shape that wouldn't tackle anything more difficult than a class 2 section at most.

[calipidder]

There is a use trail that follows the drainage from Nydiver Lake from the trail between Shadow and Ediza. There is a campsite just off the main trail between that junction and Ediza. We stayed there a few years ago. It's not beautiful but it can fit several tents and we were tired when we got there. The next day we dayhiked a bunch of the lakes in the area, including Nydiver.

The link below shows our dayhike from camp up to Nydiver. We started from camp just off of the marked trail (above the 'd' in Shadow on the topo map), then found the use trail pretty quickly and followed it up. I don't recall campsites around Nydiver but I wasn't looking.

http://caltopo.com/map?id=0A4S" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[kpeter]

Thanks. I'll put Ruby Lake down as a possible alternative to Thousand Island. Badger Lakes may be a little out of the way from Thousand Island but could be an alternative to Clark Lakes.

As an aside, are there any day hikes in the vicinity of Nydiver, Thousand Island and Clark Lakes that people would recommend? Maverick mentioned Davis Lakes. Would getting from Thousand Island to a point that overlooks Lake Catherine be feasible for a day hike? I imagine we would have 3-4 hours of daylight to burn on some days after setting up camp. Would a day hike from Nydiver to Ediza and possibly to Iceberg be feasible?

Again, really a bunch of novices in good shape that wouldn't tackle anything more difficult than a class 2 section at most.

I am taking a friend to Ediza and dayhiking for a few days starting Monday.

Nydiver can also be accessed by following Ediza's western inlet upstream and cutting NNE when you get to the 3060 meter mark.

I wandered through Clark Lakes once on my way in to Thousand Island and they made little impression on me. They would not be high on my list for a return visit.

Several classic day hikes at Thousand Island.
1) Circling the lake
2) Hiking over the easy divide at its SW corner to explore the western end of Garnet lake and
3) Hiking some ways up towards North Glacier Pass. Even if you don't go the whole way to see Lake Catherine, the views of Banner and back over Thousand Island Lake will become more and more impressive, and you might even stumble across this:
http://highwire.stanford.edu/~galic/sta ... tenbacher/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
4) A long day hike would be up to Donahue Pass and back. Lovely meadows and flowers at certain times.
Have fun! I'm not sure when you are going, maybe we will bump into each other.

[udpumpkin]

Have fun! I'm not sure when you are going, maybe we will bump into each other.

Thanks. We are going this Friday.

We simply chose Clark Lakes as it left us what looks to be a reasonable 7-8 mile hike to Agnew Meadows on our last day. Perhaps we should backtrack and overnight at Ruby or Garnet on the last night.

[kpeter]

Have fun! I'm not sure when you are going, maybe we will bump into each other.

Thanks. We are going this Friday.

We simply chose Clark Lakes as it left us what looks to be a reasonable 7-8 mile hike to Agnew Meadows on our last day. Perhaps we should backtrack and overnight at Ruby or Garnet on the last night.

To my taste it would not be a destination lake, but Clark Lakes is a perfectly reasonable wayside stop on your way out if you think you cannot get from Thousand Island all the way to Agnew in one day. It is worth doing the high trail for variety and the vistas. But by the last day with your packs lighter and your lungs more acclimated I bet you could do Thousand Island to Agnew on the high trail in a day.

[rpb]

Thousand Island to Agnew Meadows is definitely doable in one day. I recently did the river trail between Agnew and Thousand Island in about 5 hours of walking time taking it easy. There was another group that left the same time as us that did the same hike via the high trail and they were about 200 yards ahead of us when we reached our destination.

[udpumpkin]

Thanks. Yes, I don't think it will be a problem for our group to do Thousand Island to Agnew in a day. Our permit has us starting towards Shadow Creek, so I was thinking Ediza or Nydiver would be a good first stop followed by Thousand Island. Clark was just a different place on the loop back towards Agnew. Maybe we should do Thousand Island again or Garnet instead of Clark. Is it safe to assume that Badger Lake is similar to Clark?

I know that our group could comfortably do 7 miles a day and could probably do 9 miles everyday. Multiple 10+ mile days may be pushing it. I'll have to noodle on it some more. My only experience in this area was a loop I ran from Agnew Meadows to Thousand Island (via John Muir) and back on the River Trail. The area from Shadow Lake to Thousand Island was some of the most amazing scenery I have experienced. Maybe finishing on Clark Lakes would not be the way to go out.

[rsm333]

Yes, consider the Western end of 1000 Island lake...lot's of room there. Also, you can petty easily get over the low pass to Garnet from here. I would think carefully about Whitebark Pass from Garnet to Nydiver.