Bench Traverse (Unofficial)

[erutan]

TITLE: Bench Traverse (Unofficial)

GENERAL OVERVIEW: Connects Bench Lakes Valley with Red Mountain Basin, at a significantly lower elevation (and difficulty) than Lucifer's Saddle and is almost certainly the companion of Secor's "Blackcap Traverse".

CLASS/DIFFICULTY: Class 1/2, straightforward.

LOCATION: Sierra National Forest. HST Map

ELEVATION: Approximately 9,200 to 9,400 ft

USGS TOPO MAP (7.5'): Blackcap Mountain

ROUTE DESCRIPTION:

This path follows an "ancient stock route" and should be considered the companion to Secor's "Blackcap Traverse". I'm unsure of the exact starting point on the Bench side as we were just looking at topo for a lower traverse back to RMB after stumbling across the Hutton Col bypass and wandering around to nearly all the lakes in Bench Valley (including the lower Guest & McGuire) and bumped into the route partway in, but that doesn't really matter. We cut off the trail as it neared the southern fork of Fall Creek with an easy looking crossing, I assume the old stock route enters below that and is probably marked with blazes.

There's a come and go well cairned old stock trail that from the bench side goes through open forest, some gorgeous open slab with nice views out to the southwest, and eventually meets some manzanita. Thankfully the old path continues through these, and of 2019 no bashing through was required. There's an old packer fire ring along the eastern fork of Meadow Creek, and where it meets the trail on the RMB side trees on either side of the trail have old blazes (37.09520, -118.84644) which makes for easy indentification on that side.

Aside from the simpler path through the manzanita there's no real need to stay on the trail or critical routefinding as long as you don't drop too low and cliff yourself out (just climb back up if that happens) though I was paying attention to ledges a bit around the waypoint where it says "Tightens".

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