in late august of 2021, some friends and i humped over lamarck col with the intention of circumnavigating the hermit via mcgee lakes basin. this was not the trip we ended up taking, however.
the full report is here: https://badmountain.org/lamarck-col-life-in-smoke
and a summary is below
in the week or two before our trip, a steady west wind had kept much of the smoke from california’s various and growing fires flowing into the state of nevada. but a day or two before we left, a shift in wind sent smoke streaming into the high sierra.
on our way up lamarck, a runner and his dog strode up behind me. he lived in bishop and worked on “mammal stuff” in the sierra: mostly mountain lions and bighorn sheep. he said that there are hundreds of mountain lions in the sierra. (“anywhere there are deer, there are lions.”) this was amazing news to me given how few sightings there are: via this forum, i'm aware of only one or two!
in this very low snow year, just a meager bit of ice field remained at lamarck, and we were surprised to find a good switchbacking trail nearly the whole way up. given that this slope is covered in snow for much of the year (albeit less so in the last decade or two), i wonder when this use trail came into existence?
everyone's favorite sign.
on the far side, we started down the most obvious use trail and lost it pretty quickly. the entire descent seemed to consist of a million intersecting use trails leading to nowhere. upon consultation, gps told us we were in the right spot, but we never hit upon a useful trail.
darwin canyon.
i love this lake!
evolution valley, looking very hazy.
we reached profound and popular evolution lake for the night, but found plenty of privacy and space for ourselves just a short way off the beaten path.
we started to consider a change of plan. while we felt ok with the degree of smoke health-wise, mcgee lakes sounded special, epic, grand; exactly the kind of vistas that would be washed out in current conditions.
some of the advice i have for our new, smoky hiking reality is to stay closer to or below treeline, in the realm of more near term beauty. the face melting vistas are simply less melty under smoke, whereas the up-close world is still beautiful. i know others will likely feel otherwise!
in the morning, we hemmed and hawed and eventually agreed to reroute ourselves north through evolution valley, piute canyon, and piute pass. it would be a much different trip: lower, busier, and almost totally trailbound. i'm still not sure if we made the right choice.
evolution valley.
i do love the stretch of the JMT between evolution and piute canyon.
we camped by the piute bridge and had much of it to ourselves.
the next morning we turned up piute canyon, which is lovely. i am a big fan of the massive slabs about halfway up.
a previous visitor.
we headed up towards humphreys basin and piute pass. we stopped for our last night at lower golden trout lake, where we restored ourselves in the water. the lake is mucky and shallow. each step set off atomic bombs of muck – gross but worth it. i imagine that these lakes are on their way to becoming meadows.
later we took a sunset club trip up the striking rock formation separating upper and lower golden trout lakes.
looking north over the basin to mount humphrey.
the moody, smoky sunset did not disappoint.
it smelled more of smoke overnight than at any other point of the trip and as we got going, humphrey’s basin was cloaked in sullen haze.
a dour final view of the interior sierra, looking west from near piute pass.
on one hand -- what a gift it is to be in this profound range.
on the other hand -- it takes a lot of time and energy to get up into the alpine just to walk through smoky landscapes while inhaling unhealthy levels of particulate.
to avoid smoke, the typical recommendation is to stay high, but on this trip we often found the opposite: our clearest night was at 8,000 feet, our worst near 11,000. the convoluted nature of mountainous terrain makes smoke forecasting a complex problem.
we had a lovely trip, of course, but i'm not sure that yearly trips through alpine haze is going to look that appealing to me. i prattle on for longer about smoke, hiking, and climate change in the full report, but in sum: what a mess!
