High Sierra Topix

Thanks again for the suggestions. Yes, more days are always great, but sometime tough to come by.

I ran these two options by my friends, and they didn't want to go over Echo Col or climb 6,000 feet on Day 1 & 2 to Taboose Pass (reasonable people) (but I'm still putting the Lake Basin on my personal to do list).

So . . . we ended up with the following trip: Lamarck Col to Darwin Bench to Lake 11092/Lake 11106 down to McClure Meadow up to McGee Canyon & McGee Lakes and out through Lamarck Col.

I figure if we really want to take it easy, we can eliminate the leg from Darwin Bench to Lake 11092 and McClure Meadow. In that case, we'd go from Darwin Bench straight to McGee Lakes . But I hear that 11092 is nice, so hopefully we'll do the whole thing. Thanks again for your advice on this trip!

You could loop and avoid repeat miles to and from via Lamark Col. I did this 7-day trip in 2015 with another HST member. We had two days where we just day-hiked (moved about a mile on one). The McGee Lakes are very scenic- well worth a day to just see them all.

Day 1-5.2 mi. over Piute Pass to Murial Lake
Day 2- 10.8 mi down San Joaquin camping near the bridge
Day 3- 11 miles to Mc Gee Lakes
Day 4- 6.1 miles - all day hiking the Mc Gee Lakes and fishing
Day 5- 8 miles to Darwin Bench, camped at tarn just below the middle lakes- side-trip to some little lakes above Evolution Lake on the way
Day 6- day hike the upper lakes, I fished, he checked out Keyhole Pass, then move camp about a mile to one of the lakes in Darwin Canyon
Day 7- 6.3 miles out via Lamark Col

Wandering Daisy wrote:You could loop and avoid repeat miles to and from via Lamark Col. I did this 7-day trip in 2015 with another HST member. We had two days where we just day-hiked (moved about a mile on one). The McGee Lakes are very scenic- well worth a day to just see them all.

Day 1-5.2 mi. over Piute Pass to Murial Lake
Day 2- 10.8 mi down San Joaquin camping near the bridge
Day 3- 11 miles to Mc Gee Lakes
Day 4- 6.1 miles - all day hiking the Mc Gee Lakes and fishing
Day 5- 8 miles to Darwin Bench, camped at tarn just below the middle lakes- side-trip to some little lakes above Evolution Lake on the way
Day 6- day hike the upper lakes, I fished, he checked out Keyhole Pass, then move camp about a mile to one of the lakes in Darwin Canyon
Day 7- 6.3 miles out via Lamark Col

I'll run this option my be crew. Thanks for this suggestion!

Our trip to Taboose, Bench, Lake Basin, Dumbell, Amp. Was my favorite out of more than 100 trips.

With 6 nights and entering/exiting out of North Lake, you could easily do the main components of an 8-day loop I did in 2012 without having to backtrack or drop down to the San Joaquin or Piute Canyon:

Day 1: North Lake over Piute Pass to anywhere in Humphreys Basin or the north side of the Glacier Divide
Day 2: To Ramona Lake (fun off-trail hiking that doesn't involve any onerous passes)
Day 3: South and west pass Lake 10907 and through pass west of Lake 11236 (I'm told this is the easiest crossing of the Glacier Divide) and around to 11092/11106
Day 4: past Darwin Bench to Darwin Canyon
Day 5: out to North Lake over Lamarck Col

In the loop I did we also visited French Canyon and took it a bit slower for fishing reasons, so that's why our trip was 8 days. You could easily add on a night at the McGee Lakes and still keep this to a 7 day/6 night trip with amazing scenery, fun cross-country backpacking without getting into anything too dicey, and (if any of you fish) some great fishing opportunities.