TR: Deadman Canyon Loop, July 26-31, 2021

[marysusername]

Hi all,

I've really enjoyed everyone's trip reports, and have gotten a ton of useful information out of them, so I decided to write my first in case it's helpful to another hiker down the line. The version with photos is here: https://www.sierrabackpackingblog.com/p ... anyon-loop

And I'll paste all the text below, so it's keyword searchable in the forums search feature (which I use a lot).

Dates: July 26 through July 31, 2021 (6 days)
Total miles: 48(ish)
Trailheads: Entered at the Twin Lakes Trailhead, exited at the High Sierra Trail trailhead (Crescent Meadow)
Permit: Twin Lakes, issued by SEKI
Map: Tom Harrison Mount Whitney High Country

A near-loop hike through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, featuring gorgeous scenery and so much rain.

Day 0 (Lodgepole Campground)

I drove up to Sequoia National Park, arriving around 2 p.m., set up my tent at my reserved campsite at Lodgepole Campground, and hopped on a shuttle to get my permit (which, due to COVID, they were issuing at the Giant Forest Museum). When I got to the front of the line, I asked about one spot on my trip where I was nervous about water in this very dry year -- Ferguson Creek, where I hoped to camp -- but the ranger unfortunately didn't have any information. He did encourage me to camp at Ranger Lake rather than Twin Lakes, because he said it was more beautiful and less crowded, but I knew I couldn't get over Silliman Pass on Day 1 -- it was an extra 650 ft. of climbing.

I had a bit of time left before dinner, so I stopped by the General Sherman tree and did the Congress Loop, which was as beautiful as ever. Then back to my campsite to read and eat dinner, and early to bed.

Day 1 (Twin Lakes Trailhead to Twin Lakes, 6.4 mi.)

I had been apprehensive about this day, because it had a 2,800 ft. total elevation gain, and I usually top out, exhausted, around 2,500 ft. (I'd also planned other days this hard on the trip -- the whole thing was on the ambitious end for me.) But being nervous kind of helped -- I was very careful about my pace in the early miles, and managed to do half the climb before my first break. The trail was well graded and in good condition, which definitely helped. If you have to climb 2,800 ft., this is the trail to do it on.

The views on the way up weren't really anything to write home about, but it was nice having the tree cover for shade.

Twin Lakes were a lovely surprise when I got there. The ranger (and the internet before him) had made them sound unappealing, but I thought they were beautiful. The bulk of campers were right at the west end of the big lake, where the trail comes in, but I found a great campsite way further east along the lake shore, to the south of the trail. I couldn't see any of the other groups from there, and the sites were flat and comfortable. My legs were so sore from the climb that I was groaning as I set up my tent, but I don't think anyone could hear me.

It rained a little in the afternoon, so I climbed into my tent and promptly fell asleep, then got up again around 4:00 to walk around, take pictures, read, and make an early dinner. I was glad I'd had dinner early, because it really started raining in earnest after I did my dishes, driving me back into my tent. A sign of things to come!

Day 2 (Twin Lakes to Ferguson Creek, 11.7 mi.)

This was the day I was worried about from a water-availability standpoint. My plan was to go from Twin Lakes, over Silliman pass, past Ranger Lake, down Belle Caynon, and partway down the Sugarloaf trail to Ferguson Creek, where I'd read that there were a couple of good campsites. If there wasn't water in Ferguson Creek, I'd have to keep going to Roaring River for the next water -- making it a 14.3 mile day, which is longer than I've ever hiked with a full pack before. It was mostly flat or downhill after the pass, so I knew I could hike that far; I just really didn't want to have to.

I was out of camp by 8:00, and kept up a respectable pace, counting down the miles as if I was going to have to hike all 14 of them. I did make a point of stopping by Ranger Lake, and it wasn't the amazing gorgeous lake people made it sound like -- it was pretty, and I snapped a few photos, but it was not prettier than Twin Lakes, and a helluva lot harder to get to on Day 1. I paused to feel a renewed sense of gratitude for my Twin Lakes campsite, and pushed on.

One really really unhelpful thing about this stretch of trail is that the trail signs do not match the mileage on either of the maps I had (Tom Harrison's Mt. Whitney High Country and a Caltopo map) -- they were quite a bit longer, like a mile and a half longer. It was... demoralizing. And after hiking it, I'm pretty sure the signs were wrong and the maps were right.

The views on these long miles were once again nice but not spectacular. Ball Dome looms above you at one point, and that was pretty cool, and Sugarloaf is delightfully weird looking. But mostly I was pushing through miles and stressing out about water.

After passing Sugarloaf, there were two decent-sized creeks I was supposed to cross on the trail. The first was bone dry, and the second was supposed to be Ferguson. I finally got to a trickle of water that crossed the trail. It was enough to live on if you needed to, but it was running over mossy rocks and through marshy foliage, and seemed like it'd be a filter-clogging mess to deal with. I was about to push on, assuming another 2.6 miles to Roaring River, when I thought to check my location on Avenza. Yup! I was at some little seasonal stream that wasn't on the map at all. I had about a half-mile to Ferguson Creek. Which I finally got to, and which was low but flowing fine. Whew!

I scoped out the area and thought the better campsites here were to the left, after you cross the creek. I set up in one and set around to doing my camp chores. The clouds looked threatening, but whoever they rained on, it wasn't me.

Day 3 (Ferguson Creek to Deadman Canyon, 10 mi.)

I left camp on Day 3 pretty excited -- after two days of churning through miles, I was finally going to get to see Deadman Canyon. I made pretty good time up and over the hill to Roaring River, then turned south to enter the canyon.

The first 1,000 ft. of climbing up the canyon were the low point of the trip, perhaps because I was so looking forward to the big views up ahead, or perhaps because they were a densely wooded buggy mess that climbed relentlessly with zero views.

Breaking out into Grave Meadow was such a relief. The views finally opened up, the bugs chilled out, and it was a great place for a snack break. I paused at the grave itself -- not a bad spot for a "sheepherder, mountain man" to spend eternity. Big, swooping granite walls now surrounded me, and I was in my happy place.

But it was really the meadow after Grave that things got gobsmackingly beautiful. I was still climbing and getting tired, but wow, I was getting rewarded for my efforts. From there on out, it was nothing but jaw-dropping scenery all the way up the canyon.

Of course, at this point it started raining. Then bright sunshine. Then more rain. And so on.

I hadn't been sure where I was going to camp that night. I'd read trip reports that referred to camping at the "headwall" of the canyon, but looking at a topo map, it was hard to tell how far they meant. I didn't want to get too far up the canyon and find that there was nowhere left to camp on that side of the pass. I'd read one trip report where the group stayed on a granite ledge at about 10,000 ft. I had figured that would set me up nicely for the next day's hard hike, and kind of planned on stopping there. But I wasn't ever 100% sure it was a good (or legal) campsite, and with all the rain, and the possibility of lightning, I was liking my tentative plan less and less. During a break I checked out my options, and saw another spot on the map at about 9,600 ft. that looked flat, and promising. I decided to keep hiking and see.

When I got up to about 9,200 ft. or so, the views changed again -- a granite semi-circle at the head of the canyon, with a green wash at the bottom following the creek. It was stunning. At about 9,400 ft., I passed a group of (what I presumed were) boy scouts, mostly in their tents waiting out the rain. I was liking my new campsite idea more and more, but the terrain was heavier on talus and shrubs than sandy flats, so it still wasn't a sure thing.

Finally I got to the point where the trail ticked left and started uphill toward the pass for real. I looked out across the talus and shrubs that covered my flat spot at 9,600 ft., and thought, oh well, up another 400 ft. But I hadn't climbed more than 20 ft. up when I saw a very large sandy area right where I'd hoped to camp. I dropped down off the trail and crossed over to it, so delighted and grateful. This was the promised land, the good camping at the headwall of the canyon.

It's one of my favorite campsites that I'd ever had. Surrounded on three sides by sheer granite walls, with the rest of the canyon dropping off like an infinity pool behind me. Good access to the creek. And I had the whole place to myself.

Unfortunately, the storm was still going. It started raining again while I was setting up my tent, so I got it up as quickly as possible and chucked everything inside. After about half an hour, it let up again, so I did a couple of quick chores and filled my Sea to Summit Kitchen Sink with water and brought it under my vestibule, so I could kill time filtering water once it started raining again. Which it did. And then after an hour of that, it turned into the worst storm I've ever experienced backpacking.

Like an idiot, I'd set up my tent crosswise to the canyon. The wind was whipping down the granite walls and straight into the vestibule side of my tent, with the whole structure bending 45 degrees sideways under the pressure. I spent the next 20 minutes holding up the crossbar at the top of my tent, so the poles wouldn't bend or break. Finally, the wind died down enough that I could put my tired arms down, and it rained hard for over an hour after that, during which I ate my quesadilla fixings cold, figuring (correctly) that I wasn't going to get to set up a kitchen area that night. Finally it lightened up enough that I could get out, reorient my tent in case the wind came back, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and put my bear can away. It was a very dramatic day of backpacking, with real highs and lows! And after that 2,700 ft. climb, I slept like a rock.

Day 4 (Deadman Canyon to Tamarack Lake, 5.9 miles)

This wasn't a big day by mileage, but hoo boy it was still hard on the body. I had 1,700 ft. up to the pass, 3,200 ft. down, and then another 1,000 ft. up to Tamarack Lake.

It wasn't raining when I climbed out of my tent, but it also wasn't looking good, and I didn't want to be on top of Elizabeth Pass in a thunderstorm. I moved through my morning routine, shook the water off my tent as best I could, and got on the trail by 8:15. The boy scouts from the day before hiked above me as I ate breakfast; we waved to each other, and I could hear the dads talking among themselves about what a great campsite I got. Hell yeah I did! I felt a surge of unearned pride.

The bottom of the climb up to the pass was the worst part of it -- the trail isn't in great shape and it's steep, overgrown, and slick with water (the latter maybe just because of the prior few days of rain). After that, it's well graded and with beautiful views down the canyon. It's a big climb, but doable. The granite ledge at 10,000 ft. was narrower than I'd thought -- you could technically set up a tent there (no stakes), but not 100 ft. from anything (and practically on the trail). I was glad I'd stopped where I did.

It rained a little bit on the way up, so I was really hustling; I even passed the whole scouting group, although mostly I think I was passing the dads (the kids looked ready to race up the trail). The top of the pass had gorgeous views in both directions, but the sky was turning black, so I lingered only long enough to shove a snack in my mouth and see the first three of the boy scouts reach the top; after that, I hit the trail again.

I've never hiked a stretch of trail quite like the drop down from Elizabeth Pass. It descended 3,200 ft. over 2.5 miles, and for long stretches wasn't really a trail at all, so much as a series of water channels with ducks marking the ones you were supposed to follow. It took me a long time to pick my way down the steep, slick, uneven terrain, and I could see the scouts still on top of the pass half an hour later, as the sky stayed dark and the rain started again. If I had any worrying to spare, I would have worried about them. But mostly I worried about my knees.

The reward for this leg-trembling descent was a new set of breathtaking views. Granite domes, with dramatic cracks, swirls, and arches, distracted from the pain, and sometimes from remembering to keep track of the trail (which, thanks to 1,000 ducks, is actually not that hard if you pay close attention). Finally finally finally you get to the switchbacks, which you descend as you look across at the the climb back up to get to Tamarack.

At the base of the switchbacks is a junction with the out-and-back trail to Tamarack, and the last climb of the day. I took no photos and have very little memory of this stretch, except that it drizzled steadily and I thought it was a miracle I had enough gas in the tank to make it up the hill.

The beauty of Tamarack Lake was worth every step. With a waterfall pouring into the opposite side, and peaks surrounding it, it was just as lovely as I'd heard. Right as the trail came into the lake I saw a group camped too close to the water, but by heading to the right, I started to spot good, comfortable, legal campsites, with great views of the waterfall. Someone (presumably a park ranger) had gone to the trouble to flatten some spots and ring them with rocks, so no ground clearing was necessary to set up my tent, which was nice.

The rain stopped just before I got to the lake, so I had a wonderful time eating my snacks and dinner with a view, taking photos, and all around enjoying the second spectacular campsite in a row on this trip.

Day 5 (Tamarack Lake to Buck Creek, 5 miles)

This was a less dramatic day of hiking -- just 5 miles back to the trail junction I'd passed through the day before, across the cutoff trail Bearpaw Meadow, and onto the High Sierra Trail. The views and especially the granite were still gorgeous in the first couple of miles, and then it was through a stretch of woods and down to the High Sierra Trail.

I had needed to camp somewhere along the HST to break up the hike out into two days, and for some reason my research led me to think Buck Creek would be nice.

It was not nice! The campsites were small, on top of one another, and wedged between the trail and the creek. Nothing about them seemed legal -- not least that the surrounding shrubs were so dense that there wasn't a good place to wash up or go to the bathroom that wasn't just in some other potential, lousier campsite (and there was plenty of evidence that I'm not the only one who came to that conclusion). There's a bear box here, so it's "official," but I don't think it's just the comedown from Deadman and Tamarack that made me wonder whether this was the worst backcountry site I'd stayed in.

At any rate, it drizzled all afternoon, so I did a quick load of laundry for the hike out (which got rained on intermittently until I gave up and hung it in my tent) and then stayed in my tent reading the rest of the day, until dinner. I did have a nice time after dinner sitting on the granite by the side of the creek, watching the light fade and ogling the trees in the hillside above, which seemed to be barely hanging on.

Day 6 (Buck Creek to Crescent Meadow, 9.1 mi.)

I'd never been on the High Sierra Trail before, and it was so cool! I'd had a permit for four for 2020, booked prior to the pandemic, and canceled when we decided such a logistics-heavy trip with people outside our own households was not a good idea. So I was delighted to hike this stretch of it.

Early on, I passed Nine Mile Creek, which I definitely should have camped at the night before. It looked way more comfortable than where I'd been.

Shortly after that, a woman came up the trail in the opposite direction, and asked me a few questions, as she passed, about my route. When we were done chatting, I turned to start walking again, and felt an excruciating pain in my ankle, as a large orange and black winged insect flew off of me. I think, after much googling that night at home, that it was a hornet. It hurt a lot, so I hobbled over to a boulder to sit and take a look at it. There wasn't a visible stinger, and it had bitten me through my wool sock. I figured there was nothing I could really do but keep hiking, so once the initial shock wore off, I put my pack back on and kept going.

It never stopped hurting, and the swelling began to build (that wouldn't go down for 6 days), but what freaked me out is that my vision started to get sort of pulsing and flickery. After much googling later about that, I think it was low blood pressure, caused by some combination of stress and possibly dehydration -- apparently it can be caused by insect venom, too, but in combination with anaphylaxis, which I didn't have. Anyway, this is all to say that the next several miles were literally a blur, but the trail is exceptionally well maintained, wide, and not steep, so I felt safe to continue, and eventually my vision returned to normal and my ankle pain was steady but not debilitating.

The very end of my hike was through some sequoias, which was a real treat. Then out to Crescent Meadow, on a shuttle to the Giant Forest Museum, and on another shuttle to Lodgepole and my car.

I got soaked on this trip, and stung, and had one lousy campsite and some unspectacular miles, but every minute of it was worth it to get to see Deadman Canyon and Tamarack Lake. I'd highly recommend this trip, and hope my notes are of some use to someone else considering this trek.

[wildhiker]

Nice report and sounds like you had a good trip overall. I was backpacking in Yosemite that same week and had rain every day but one, starting around noon, so I sympathize with your storm troubles!
-Phil

[sekihiker]

Nice report with great photos. The sting reaction must have been unexpected and scary.

[marysusername]

Thanks for the comments, wildhiker and sekihiker! Yes, it was damp for sure, but better rain than smoke! And I don't recommend one of those stings -- owww.

[creekfeet]

Nice report, concise and enjoyable. Really love the shot of Tamarack Falls. I'm definitely one of those people that doesn't care at all for Twin Lakes, and thinks Ranger is as good as it gets. I guess I'm a sucker for an island lake. As for Buck Creek, you're completely right that the visible campsites kind of suck, and are technically illegally within 100 feet of the trail. For future reference, without giving away too much info, I'll just say that if you explore the creek a little bit you can find a truly incredible site.

[marysusername]

Thanks, creekfeet, and that's a tantalizing tip about Buck Creek! I'm passing through that area again this summer... I'll have to poke around a bit more and see if I can find it.

[wildhiker]

If you don't mind carrying water for 5 or 10 minutes to your campsite, there is a great dry camp in an open area with granite slabs and dirt areas for tents just below the High Sierra Trail on the low ridge between Nine Mile Creek and Buck Creek. Nine Mile Creek is closer to get water.
-Phil

[Rnasty]

Great report! I did a very similar loop, we just skipped Tamarack. Deadman Canyon Is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and I cannot wait to get back there. Those campsite at the headwall are truly spectacular and there is such a nice flat area right next to the creek where it all opens up.

Buck creek definitely looked like the crummiest spot on the HST, even bearpaw gives more room, albeit not as scenic.