TR 7/16-21Humbled by heat, Falls Creek, N Yosemite (part 1)

[giantbrookie]

Preamble. We've had few fishing reports this year. Fishing took place on this trip (surprise, surprise) and, as per tradition, the asynchronous summary can be read later in part 2. The record snowpack, and associated late thaw and consequent extended high runoff have limited options for High Sierra trips this year. I checked Sentinel Hub Playground and determined that the original wilderness permit reservation for a north-central Yosemite trip originating at Green Creek wouldn't fly because of the likelihood of frozen target lakes. In addition, reevaluating the topo map, I didn't like the looks of at least two stream crossings. I attempted to reserve an alternative permit going out of Hetch Hetchy (Beehive) for a much lower-elevation trip with zero non-bridged streamed crossings, but found our dates full, so I waited over a week for the "walk up" electronic window to open. Although I logged into Recreation.gov at about 0804, and the entry day was a Sunday, only three slots remained, but we only needed two (me and Dawn), so Game On. To avoid a non-bridged crossing of Falls Creek downstream of the headmost reach was the main driver behind the original Plan A, which would go from Lake Vernon to Branigan Lake (from the south, after crossing Falls Creek on the Lake Vernon outlet bridge), Wilma Lake ("backdoor" to avoid Falls Creek), Tilden Lake, Mary Lake, Dorothy Lake, Bearup Lake, and then out. Progressive checking of Sentinel Playground ruled out the Mary-Dorothy part, partly contrived to cross Falls Creek near its source at Dorothy Lake. As of the day before departure (Saturday 7/15), Sentinel Playground showed Tilden 90+ percent frozen over with lots of snow to be hiked over, so the new game plan became an in-and-out trip with the highest camp at Wilma, with a possible dayhike to Tilden to attempt to fish a bit of open water. In the meantime, the weather report looked intimidating, with Hetch Hetchy forecast to hit 107 following an overnight low of 75 and Lake Vernon, our planned day 1 destination forecast to hit 91. Only the forecast of strong winds gave us some hope.

Day 1 (Sunday 7/16): Hetch Hetchy to Lake Vernon. When I picked up our wilderness permit, the ranger told me of some bold (but not quite "problem") bears at Lake Vernon, heaping on another source of anxiety. Dawn and I started hiking sometime around 830 am, following my usual non-solo procedure: leave teammate and packs at trailhead (day use only), drive to backpackers parking and hike back carrying nothing. This is more useful at those east side trailheads where it is more than a mile from the backpacker's lot to the true trailhead (especially South Lake) but I wanted to give us the maximum possible advantage. We strode across the dam in high spirits, partly boosted by the huge wind blowing across the reservoir. As we started the dreaded switchbacks the wind vanished, as it would for seemingly every uphill reach that day, a pattern that persisted for our entire trip. I think temps had already hit high 80s to low 90s by about a third of the way up the sun-scorched wall. We worried that we'd drain our 2L of water (apiece) before reaching the first viable refill. Dawn and I went into this trip in elite condition, but I questioned my last few weeks of training. I struggled against the weight (>50lbs) of my pack much more than anticipated and remarked to Dawn that I should have done more weighted hill climbs after returning from Newfoundland in Beast Mode. After feeling youthful and unstoppable after my megadayhike to Lake Vernon on June 2 (https://www.highsierratopix.com/communi ... hp?t=22975), I now found myself wondering if my age (64 as of early August) was in fact showing.

Several gear issues contributed to discomfort. I should have addressed several of these issues before this season began because these were to-do items from last season. The sternum strap on my Gregory Baltoro 85 had come off late last year and I was missing a buckle so the top flap had only one tie-down. The missing buckle meant an awkward tiedown of a fully-stuffed pack and the missing sternum strap leads to a non-optimal shoulder strap position (too wide unless super tight). My sun hat has a broad and really stiff rim. The stiff rim has advantages in high winds (doesn't fold into face), but it bumps into the upper part of the pack leading to a pretty sharp knock of the head with each stride. I had made a poor choice in liner socks, apparently using an old and tired pair that did not "slip" the way good liner socks should. This would not have been an issue with broken-in boots, or new boots that do not need break in, but I hiked in new Asolo 520s, forced into action because I had destroyed my aging 520s in Newfoundland. My right heel burned from about the 1/3 point on the ascent; the most painful heel blister of my 55+ years of hiking made its debut.

We reached the first water and it seemed like an oasis. We entered what felt like an air-conditioned room that thronged with hikers headed in both directions. There we received a boost of spirit, not so much from the water, but from other hikers we struck up conversations with, especially a group of women hikers, distinguished from other hikers on the trail by having the ingenuity and foresight to hike with special umbrellas clipped to their packs, by far the best beat-the-heat gear option sported by anyone. Between that water and the last stream before the Beehive, Dawn and I sort of played leapfrog with this group, with each group passing each other as the other rested, except for one enjoyable common stop. With regret we found ourselves slowly drawing ahead of them, so that they reached our last common point (last water before Beehive) just as Dawn and I were leaving; their destination for day one was Laurel Lake. We said our good byes and headed on our way, the most grueling part of the hike behind us. The intense heat resulted in getting cooked not only from the sun above but also from oven-like reflected heat from the ground, but the company of good people had made things much more tolerable.

Dawn and I slogged to the high point at the junction of the Vernon-Tiltill trail and the Moraine Ridge trail. On the windless stretches through soggy ground, mosquitoes harassed us. For Dawn, historically sensitive to mossie torment, this only heaped on misery. For me, at least for the time, my Newfoundland mode, allowed me to tune it out as background annoyance. After a surprisingly exhausting end game, we arrived at the Tiltill trail junction just short of the Lake Vernon outlet, where I warned Dawn that the sign reading "Lake Vernon 0.1" should not be believed. As a track athlete, Dawn can estimate distances accurately and figured that the hiking distance to where we peeled off to a campsite was probably in the 600 m range. We dropped our packs at about 4 pm after being on the trail for about 7.5 hours in temperatures well above any we had backpacked in before.
As per our habit, we chose a spacious "high ground" campsite quite far from the lake. After pitching the tent, as per habit Dawn and I inflated our sleeping pads. Lee had recently upgraded us to Nemo Tensors, remarkable for their compactness deflated, light weight, and easier to deflate and restore to their sack than any pad I've ever used; I had first used mine on two backpack trips in 2022 and really liked it. I worried a bit about their fragile appearance and babied them taking extra care in handling them.

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I then addressed a key issue of a "high-ground-far-from-water" campsite--acquisition of water. Through our 2021 long trip (Hoover, Emigrant Wildernesses and N Yosemite) we had used the same collapsible water bucket I'd used at least as far back as the late 1980s, but on that trip, it began to leak so fast as to send it into retirement. I could not find a place that sold a similar bucket, so I figured I'd try one of those old school collapsible water containers. As I tried to fill it down at the lake, I realized one big problem. It is too flexible to resistant being flattened by its own buoyancy when trying to push it underwater to fill, so you can't really put much water in it if filling from still water, so I realized I could only fill it to a larger volume from a suitable cascade. Upon returning with a relatively meager, but still useful amount of water to camp, I realized the second flaw in my gear choice: the mouth, even with the spigot removed, is too small to admit the intake end (w pre-filter) of my Katadyn water filter, so I had to filter by pouring into my cooking pot first.

Dawn and I had little remaining energy when we arrived, but we enjoyed a hearty and tasty dinner before the evening mosquito harassment drove us into the tent earlier than we wanted to. With no threat of rain, I left the rainfly off, hoping the evening air flow would cool us down. I really don't know how much it cooled that night, but it seemed to me the warmest night I've ever spent camping. The forecast predicted 67. I doubt temps fell below 70. We slept on top of our bags. Before I put in, I took off my socks and noticed the huge heel blister had already burst leaving a large raw crater in the center. In spite of the aches and pains our usual backpacking habits played out: I slept well but Dawn did not in spite of the extra flat, extra soft sandy campsite.

Day 2 (Monday 7/17): Lake Vernon to Branigan Lake.
We awoke to mosquito attack and what already seemed like oppressive, breezeless heat. I wondered about the bridge at the outlet. Would the blazing heat push runoff to superhigh levels so that the "overflow" around the bridge would render the crossing too sketchy? I limped (the heel) and Dawn hiked to the trail junction where she sneered at the 0.1 mile sign, now having experienced it. As I led us to toward the unseen bridge, with the roar of raging water getting louder, I was jarred awake by an unmistakable sound that is so familiar from many encounters doing geologic fieldwork in the Coast Ranges. A stride ahead I saw a rattlesnake in the undergrowth just to the right of the trail. I stopped and told Dawn it was a rattlesnake; this was her first rattlesnake encounter. There wasn't enough room to step by so we waited. The snake seemed a bit unsure of what to do. It slithered onto the trail, then turned back, then slithered back onto the trail, before heading off into the undergrowth to our left. Before we had left on the trip, I explained to Dawn that these lower elevations of northwest Yosemite had numerous rattlesnakes so she should be mindful about blindly reaching for holds and the like. In spite of having taken quite a few trips to northwest Yosemite over the years, this was in fact the first time I've encountered a rattlesnake in the Sierra backcountry since finding one of the largest rattlers I've ever seen coiled in a potential campsite at Edyth Lake (similar elevation and not too far away) in 1986.

To my relief, when we reached the famed Lake Vernon, bridge, we found the "overflow channel" shallow and therefore safe, so we crossed the bridge while marveling at the savage power of Falls Creek. If the rattlesnake had not been a bad omen for the day, I presented one when I failed to locate the Tiltill trail on the other side. I didn't realize that it tracks toward the lake across the slabs so I looked for its continuation at the base of the slope in the downstream direction. After detouring too far downstream I headed directly up the slabs, figuring I'd eventually intersect the trail, which I did. It wasn't until our return hike days later on the trail when we realized that this unintentional detour was probably more efficient and pleasant hiking than following the multi-switchbacked trail with big water bars. The big water bars of the Hetch Hetchy switchbacks had already tortured Dawn, just as the giant water bars of the Pine Creek trail of the early 90s (biggest I've ever seen but thankfully more sensibly sized as per 2020) led Judy to forbid future trips up the Pine Creek trail. But we did not know that at the time and our shaken spirits, not recovered from our day 1 beatdown, dipped a bit. My blister really barked on ascents, and no wind refreshed us as we climbed in the already searing sun.

I made a poor choice of my selection of topos for the day. My go-to topo is a 1990 vintage Emigrant Wilderness topo, which is vastly superior to the subsequent version with topo so faded as to be invisible (at least to my senior eyes), but my 2002 Harrison Emigrant Wilderness map has much darker and easier-to-see topo, so I had it in my "topo pocket" in my pants for the day. Unfortunately, the ideal departure point for my planned off trail route to Branigan Lake is near the southern cutoff of that map, so when I went too far on the Tiltill trail before turning off, I walked into an area that was no on the topo. But even with the best 80'-contoured-topo, there is a lot of complex, but large-scale topography whose relief is too small to show up with 80' contour interval and even on 40' maps. We climbed, descended, traversed, climbed, descended over endless small ridges, some of which may be glacial deposits, others are almost certainly bedrock ridges formed by erosion of jointed granitic rocks. Time and time again we found ourselves mired in thick brush, commonly growing over our heads, with "climax" thickets associated with boggy areas. I reduced the amount of bushwhacking partly by following the amazingly numerous bear trails; bear trails work much better than deer trails because bears just go through brush like tanks instead of vaulting over the thicker reaches as deer do. No breeze relieved the stuffy, humid, hot air, nor blew away the clouds of biting insects. My Newfoundland tolerance collapsed as I found myself repeatedly bitten not only by mosquitoes, but by three different types of flies. Dawn put on her mosquito net, which really amplifies the miserable heat, whereas, as the route finder, I could not impair my vision by wearing a net. After several course corrections I emerged fairly close to where I wanted to, at the edge of a moderately steep descent to an unnamed lake occupying a trough-like bench east and above Lake Vernon. Upon reaching the lake, travel became easier, although a fairly recent (brush has not grown back yet) wildfire (not sure which one), had really torched some of this area. This served as an advantage in some places because it had completely burned the undergrowth, whereas in other places this hindered us with many fallen burned trunks. We ascended the trough to its head at a low granitic ridge, then made a sidehill traverse, all with minimal brush interference toward unseen Branigan Lake.

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When we finally rounded "the last corner", the sight of Branigan Lake dramatically lifted our wounded spirits. Lots of alpine lakes look sapphire blue, but this one had a deep blue color that reflected its bottomless depths. Lots of lakes of northwest Yosemite and Emigrant Wilderness are all about granitic slabs and water, but we found this one uniquely enthralling. I told Dawn that I thought Branigan Lake was second in beauty in this region only to the incomparable Edyth Lake. Since my 2nd visit to Edyth in 1992, Branigan had been the lake I most wanted to visit in what I called the Sierran Bermuda Triangle (trailless NW Yosemite). Some places really end up as magical or better than you imagine them; this was one of them. We even had a refreshing breeze and, although still hot, we had the advantage of 700' more elevation compared to Lake Vernon so it was a smidge cooler. We had to fight some of the usual Bermuda Triangle brush to get to our "high ground" campsite, after which we joyously pitched our camp. Paradise at last.

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After another rejuvenating multicourse dinner we knocked off. That night I did not sleep as well as I usually did. It seemed to me that I had pitched our tent with the head very slightly downhill. That night I dreamed my heel was burning in pain and I awoke to find the heel so sensitive that even the slight pressure of the heel on the sleeping bag while back sleeping felt like needles sticking into the back of my foot. I awoke poor Dawn to ask for some acetominophen (she usually regularly takes it on trips, whereas I rarely do) and resolved to take some of the heat off by side sleeping.
Days 3 and 4 (7/18, 7/19): We don't want to leave Branigan Lake, so we don't.

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Before we had knocked off the night before, Dawn had asked me if I'd consider a layover day (not in original plan) at Branigan. It took me no time to say yes. Why should we spend more time fighting more Bermuda Triangle brush, only to get to a trail which would take us to the PCT and thence to popular Wilma Lake when we were camped at a rarely-visited trailless gem. In addition, we dearly needed a day of physical and mental recovery. We did not venture too far around the lake because of forbidding brush but our slab-ringed part of the shoreline afforded many ways to enjoy the surroundings and figuratively and literally cool our feet.

Perhaps this made us lazy, or maybe we realized that other planned destinations on our various game plans simply were not as appealing as staying put. We decided on a second layover day. One of the "tasks" of the first layover day was to reorient the tent 180. Dawn agreed that this should get the heads on the uphill side. However, that night I seemed to have the same feeling of having my head low; I guess it was just the way we set up our pillows. The cloudy skies forced me to put on the rain fly and we had a few sprinkles in the evening, although the water seemed to dry as quickly as it hit my skin. Later that night I was awakened by a flash of light and thought Dawn had turned on the headlamp, until I heard the sound of distant thunder (delayed long after the flash). The thunderstorm activity persisted for awhile, but it remained distant with long time delays (probably all >5 sec.) and no associated downpour. Sometime later it began to rain steadily, although we would see little evidence of rain the next morning (everything totally dry).

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning it seemed like my Nemo had lost some air, but I fell back asleep, only to open my eyes at sunrise and find the pad totally deflated. As a young person, I could fall asleep on a granite slab, but I had long lost any vestiges of Klingon heritage. I like padding and lots of it. I told Dawn that if I couldn't get a decent night of sleep on whatever setup I could improvise, I would try to hike us all the way out on day 5. It goes without saying that this gloomy pronouncement ruined the mood, but only for a bit. After thinking things over, my brow unwrinkled, the smile came back to my face and I told Dawn "Wait a minute. I think I'll be OK without the pad. After all, I can sleep on planes." Note that this is probably the prime reason I've never had an issue with jet lag from transoceanic flights in either direction ("I can sleep on planes" means while flying economy so maybe there is more Klingon in me than meets the eye).

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After another lazy day, during which I even did a bit of core training, I put the "I can sleep on planes" concept to the test. I figured I'd only need some padding from my shoulder blades to my rear end so I folded the Nemo in half and sandwiched an assortment of clothing (rain and cooler weather stuff) and softer items (daypack, various stuff sacks, etc.). One might say that this one of several instances on the trip where the causes of the excessive pack weight of mine come in handy. Another example of the utility of "excess weight items" came when Dawn broke her fishing reel early on the trip. Dawn had lost the tip section of her fishing pole on the 2021 trip, after which we had to take turns with my rig and she had managed to break or damage fishing reels before, so on this trip I had an extra rod and reel. We clearly packed too much food (probably enough for a 9 to 10 day trip) but it was nice to be able to snack on demand with no concern about "rationing". I slept fairly well. The biggest adjustment I had to make in the middle of the night was to roll up my hiking pants and put them underneath my super sensitive right heel

Day 5 (7/20) Branigan Lake to Lake Vernon.
We awoke to the coolest and most refreshing morning we'd experience on the trip. It almost felt like a High Sierra morning, but I suppose it was a bit closer to an average summer morning in the Bay Area. We efficiently packed up and girded up for the relatively short but intense off trail hike back to the Tiltill trail above Lake Vernon. Dawn and I had agreed we'd decide whether we would stay at Lake Vernon on arrival; if we felt energetic enough, we'd hike all the way out. For the return hike I had a better line-of-sight and was able to dial what I consider an optimal route, eliminating some of inefficiency of the inbound route.

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Although I chose a better and more direct overall route outbound than inbound the climax brush passages, with unyielding interwoven branches far over our heads, may have even been worse than inbound. During the last such reach, my left hamstring viciously cramped, and it was difficult for me to straighten my leg to work the cramp out given my entanglement. I've never had a hiking cramp like that, let alone while stuck in brush. Having optimized the route, I could more objectively compare it to other off trail bushwhacks I've done. I put it no.2 (ie 2nd worst) on my all-time full pack brush fighting experiences, surpassed only by the multi-day horror of Edyth Lake 1986 from Cherry Lake (Kendrick Creek, north side). Steve Beck, in his 1995 Yosemite Trout Fishing Guide clearly had a similar experience, having traversed a similar route from Lake Vernon. Whereas he writes of Edyth and Bearup "...an adventurous fisherman can hike cross country to rainbow-filled Edyth and Bearup Lakes", he writes at length about the Vernon to Branigan route which clearly impressed him more than any other off trail route (many off trail lakes are described in his book): "This hike has it all. That is, it has all the obstacles you can imagine. It is steep and slow-going on the ridge as you end up backtracking to maneuver around impassable cliffs and gorges. If you elect to stay below the ridge you find mosquito-infested marshes slow your progress. It is extremely brushy in parts, then, when you break through the last of the brush it is straight uphill." Dawn has some epic hikes under her belt, and now she has earned her Sierra Bermuda Triangle badge. As a side note, there are other, probably easier ways to reach Branigan Lake. The route of least resistance is dependent on being able to cross Falls Creek in Jack Main canyon. This much shorter off-trail route would shoot the gap through the south wall of Jack Main Canyon past Andrews Lake and thence to Branigan. I seem to recall a post in which WD described going in this way. Speaking of Bermuda Triangle, as we descended the trail toward Lake Vernon, we met a group of outbound hikers, one of whom had been all over, even to Edyth Lake, but not Branigan. One doesn't meet too many folks who've been to Edyth.

We had plenty of gas in the tank when we arrived at Lake Vernon. Dawn asked to stay there rather than fight our way out over those blazing slabs in peak heat, so for a change-of-scenery we stayed on the south side instead of the north. The south side is more open and less buggy than the north but it also has more open sight lines and campsites are less secluded than the hidden pockets one has on the north. Using our high ground approach as well as setting up further east than the main population cluster, we earned ourselves a bit more privacy.

[giantbrookie]

Day 6 (7/21) Lake Vernon to Hetch Hetchy, Craft Beer, Fishing, etc.
After a second sleeping-on-planes night, we got up at first light and efficiently prepared for our exit. Crossing the outlet bridge we found the overflow still going but the overall runoff, although still fearsome seemed to me to have dropped by a good 20 percent or so. The ascent to the Moraine Ridge trail junction was already warm and windless. Not far below the trail junction we saw two majestic Lilium Washingtonianum, their tall stems and big white blossoms rising above the brush. This is the furthest south I've ever seen them. I've seen some impressive clumps in the North Fork Feather River drainage near Lake Almanor, and also encountered them in the Marble Mountains. After cresting out at the Moraine Ridge junction it is a long descent and Dawn took it easy on the steeper parts to save our knees, before unleashing a speed-walking attack on the home stretch along Hetch Hetchy, vaporizing all the day trippers.

Dawn wanted to finish by having us both hike to the backpacker's lot, but I told her the road is narrow and I'd rather drop the packs in the shade opposite the day use slots and go and fetch the car. Our hike out had taken almost exactly 5 hours and the somewhat restrained speed did wonders for my knees that weren't swollen the way they were after my June 2 dayhike. With the early arrival (ca. 1 pm) I figured we could stop somewhere on the way back to the Bay Area and I'd longed to try out the Around the Horn Brewing Company in Big Oak Flat. This proved a very worthwhile stop with tasty and somewhat eclectic food (for example, Dawn had a Siracha BLT) and delicious beer. I had the Bines Brigade double IPA and it ranks near the top if not at the top of my list of West Coast DIPAs I've had in 2023.

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OK, having stalled for this long... Fishing is connected with all backpacking trips we do. In common with other High Sierra backcountry anglers, our options have been a bit limited by the record snowpack and late thaw. Me and family members have wet lines on the June 2 'opening' Lake Vernon dayhike (https://www.highsierratopix.com/communi ... hp?t=22975), July 1-4 "beyond glamping" (https://www.highsierratopix.com/communi ... hp?t=23046) and a July 8 dayhike in the Lost Sierra (https://www.highsierratopix.com/communi ... hp?t=23058), but this was the slated as the "big trip" in our 2023 schedule. A total of 26 fish were caught in 5 days of fishing. The smallest was about 13" and the largest around 17". All were rainbows. Dawn had a somewhat difficult trip what with breaking her reel and catching 3, but these were spread out over 3 days and were, of course, large fish. On one of the days, I had one of my best fishing sessions ever with 7 fat rainbows caught, all 15-17" and exceedingly full bodied.

Overall this trip lacked the exploratory nature of our 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 trips, but it featured the most difficult off trail segment of hiking that Dawn has ever done, challenges brought on by the heat and equipment problems, balanced by some serious relaxation at a choice destination. Next year will be the last summer Dawn has before she heads off to college somewhere and we're hoping we have the opportunity to get to the more alpine country above 10k that she enjoys so much, but in the meantime we've added to her stash of great round-the-campfire stories.

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[texan]

Great TR. You should write a book on your adventures. Now to fishing. Those are some nice BOWS! I have fished that area a few times but higher up. When we went to Tilden a long time ago in 1994, the rainbows and golden-rainbow hybrids were good sized. You know they say Tilden is the farthest place from a road by trail from anywhere in the Sierras. I don't know if that's true or not. A side note. I bet Huckleberry would be good to fish right now. Thanks again for sharing.

Texan

[windknot]

What an epic off-trail adventure, with added environmental and equipment complications to boot. Glad you got into those big rainbows to add to the reward of the journey itself. Thanks for making the time to share this report!

[kpeter]

A superb write-up. I've tried to get to Branigan twice and gave up each time--the first time the swamps east of Vernon and the brush/mini-cliffs on the side of the north facing hill did me in. I remember beating through brush and nearly going over a cliff, since the brush concealed it. That was enough for me.

Years later I studied the map and decided to try going further south on the Tiltall trail and cutting east somewhere around 7572. But on that trip it did not seem safe to cross the flooded bridge at the outlet of Vernon, so all for nought. Reading your description makes me think it may have been for the best, although your photographs do tempt with a beautiful reward.

Sorry to hear about your blister. Blisters are a constant problem for me. Second Skin burn treatment, with plenty of Spenco adhesive, works wonders on the worst of them.

[wildhiker]

Thanks for another entertaining trip report!

[SSSdave]

Enjoyed the story. Have climbed to Brannigan three ways. Yeah the level but very much not fun east shore has areas of chinquapin brush, willow, aspen swampy thickets, deep fern flats, mosquitoes in lush areas, and glacial bedrock summer warming lily pad ponds that add a few fish any winter Falls Creek overflows. A good zone for Sierra juniper photography.

Morning, have stood atop that dome across the lake looking down into the deep waters. After arriving via Jack main Canyon, set up a bivy camp on the granitoid peninsula in your photo across the lake, took a swim, caught a big 15 inch, one fish dinner rainbow, then got in the bag. But later in the evening one of the weirdest strong wind events howled furiously for some hours before vanishing as the jetstream apparently took aim there. Also brought a group in there and camped where you did. Would be nice to know if decades later, rainbows have been able to survive through drought periods using such a small spawning stream.

[michaelzim]

Thanks for the TR John! It does make me wonder about that area of Yosemite though as all reports seem to include similar words to "bush-whacking hell" though maybe the fishing mitigates that. Good to get some conditions and bugs info for those elevations too.
Ummmmm...sorry to hear of the body and blister travails though I think the Beatles hit it on the mark with "When I'm 64". That was the first time I felt the 'age' thing starting to affect my hiking. Going up in particular. However, you seem to be doing just fine with it and no doubt your ability to sleep on planes (and deflated pads) helps tremendously. I'm big time envious!
Thanks again ~ M.

[cgundersen]

John,
A naive glance at a topo map sure camouflages the challenges you encountered getting to Branigan. Ever since you extolled the virtues of Edyth Lake, it's been on my bucket list, and now you've added another. Maybe try for both on the same excursion? In my dreams!
Aside from the rattlesnake (of which I've seen no more than a couple and that's fine by me), the parasols you spotted seem to be a new response to mountain climate change. My wife and I could not figure out what we were seeing on the McGee trail last year (bouncing orbs?) till we got close enough to see people attached to the umbrellas. Although the shade looked great, the couple sporting this new-fangled gear looked utterly miserable, so we did not bother asking them how they liked the equipment. And I was about to make a note to try a Nemo pad till I read further. I'll stick with my old-fangled Thermarest a bit longer. Thanks for a great write-up. Cameron

[giantbrookie]

John,
A naive glance at a topo map sure camouflages the challenges you encountered getting to Branigan. Ever since you extolled the virtues of Edyth Lake, it's been on my bucket list, and now you've added another. Maybe try for both on the same excursion? In my dreams!
Aside from the rattlesnake (of which I've seen no more than a couple and that's fine by me), the parasols you spotted seem to be a new response to mountain climate change. My wife and I could not figure out what we were seeing on the McGee trail last year (bouncing orbs?) till we got close enough to see people attached to the umbrellas. Although the shade looked great, the couple sporting this new-fangled gear looked utterly miserable, so we did not bother asking them how they liked the equipment. And I was about to make a note to try a Nemo pad till I read further. I'll stick with my old-fangled Thermarest a bit longer. Thanks for a great write-up. Cameron

Hi Cameron, as I told Dawn, the topo doesn't show brush, deadfalls, or 20' cliffs. Yes multiple routes look pretty benign going to Branigan, but I think the only one that is relatively painless is the later-season (ie when you can cross Falls Creek) option shooting the gap by Andrews L. With Edyth, the best route, by far (have done three of them), is through the gap SE of the lake from Frog Creek, a crossing which is reached from Moraine Ridge trail by passing through the gap that has those two unnamed lakes/ponds. As with anything else, though, there is a plus or minus to early vs late season. Late means you don't have to worry about crossing Falls and Frog Creeks, but, on the other hand, big water is one of the things that makes Edyth so stunning in early season, with the huge cascade directly into the lake (ie Kendrick Creek itself) from the north and the amazing free-falling waterfall on Kendrick Creek about 2 miles upstream of Edyth.

Regarding umbrellas, the hikers we met using them were happy and also very strong hikers. There are different models of these umbrellas, of course. I asked them about wind, the bane of all umbrellas. They noted that high winds have damaged the model most of them used before but there is a more rugged model that stands up to wind better. Honestly I can't think of too many situations when I'd rather have an umbrella than my wide-brimmed hat (OK next time I'll use my straw hat instead), but last week, with 90+ and minimal wind and minimal shade, was one of those situations.