High Sierra Topix

Quentinc, here's a nice three day loop from North Lake: over Lamarck Col, down to Darwin Basin, over either Alpine Col or The Keyhole, back to North lake via Piute Pass. I've done this twice, each time on a three-day weekend. Alpine Col is easy from the south, but the climb down involves lots of large talus and boulders. I've only done The Keyhole from the other direction, but the short Class 3 section is nothing more than a 15 foot stretch where you pass your pack down through a hole in the ridge, and then scramble down after it. If you like staying high and off-trail, this would be a good choice.

Mike

mountaineer wrote:Quentinc, would new Army be passable with snowshoes or crampons?

Mountaineer, it's hard to say -- my skills are so shabby that I would never have tried it, and I know some others with ice axes chickened out too. It's a very steep angle, about 20 feet of solid snow (I have a picture, but I need to get my butt in gear to upload them to Webshots), so looks scary. On the positive side, I'm sure it's pretty soft, since the snow considerably higher up on Langley was soft even in the (late) morning.

Edited to say, I can't believe I got this to work on my first try! Anyway, the pass itself is at the back right of the photo (you can spot the cairn). Usually, it's easier early season to descend from where I shot this, and work your way down diagonally.


MikeM: It's funny you should mention that, since that's the exact eastside trip I was considering (although as an out and back)! I read a post by CSF that Lamarck had enough footprints that it wasn't hard to get over (although I wonder about it being icy in the morning). I'm not sure that I would try Alpine or Keyhole though, without some direct beta as to the snow. Those get a lot less traffic than Lamarck, I would bet.

Has anyone explored the lakes to the west of Darwin basin? I've been above it to climb Goethe, but never to the west.

Hi Q,
If you're serious about the lakes on the South side of the Glacier Divide, let me know, as my wife and I went through there last year. We went in over Piute to Ramona Lake and looped around the far end of Glacier Divide and then traversed on the South side of the divide back to Darwin bench before heading into Ionian Basin. My TR from last year has some photos of the area (compromised by the smoke from the fires that were burning in northern CA at the time), but if you want other shots, I can dig some out. Also, another TR was logged last summer about a trip over Snow Tongue pass, and it had some great shots later in the season, and Moosetracks posted a ton of photos from a climb of the Hermit. In a nutshell, the traverse from Darwin bench to the basin south of Snow Tongue is very straightforward and the huge lake below the pass has plenty of spots to camp. We camped by the lakes further east, and as you can imagine, the views out toward Evolution Basin, Mt. Goddard and the McGee Lakes area are magnificent.
CG

Thanks CG! I'll take a look for those past TRs. After picking everyone's brain about the west side, I think Darwin Basin is the trip I'll do after all.

Thanks for the reply and the pic. Snowshoes are definitely out! However, that looks like it would be fun to attempt with axe and crampons.

If you do go back to the west side, last week I did the Emerald/Pear lake-Tablelands (moose lake)-Alta meadows loop suggested by an earlier poster (with lots of help/suggestions from this board-- thanks, we had a great time!). It was snow free except for maybe 3-4 sections of <100 feet on flat ground that could be bypassed if you want-- basically no big deal. We did essentially the minimum distance (day one- to emerald lake, few hours; day 2 up and over past moose lake-- about 8 hours at a very slow pace with swim stops; day three-- out via alta, maybe 4 hours). With more energy and longer days, you could explore well into the table lands without snow in three days. Once we left the established trails, we saw no one, but it was mid-week. the only drawback was heavy mosquitos at emerald and pear lakes.

as an aside, below the emerald lake area, in the broad valley above Tokopah falls, I saw some kind of cable/wire strung over the river between stands on either bank. Does anyone know what this is?

-adam

Adam, most likely that used to have some sort of cart hanging from it and hydrologists would go out over the river and measure water flow etc. There was a cool one for years on the Mineral King king road that we used to ride across on. they eventually took the cart away but the cable remains.

mountaineer wrote:Adam, most likely that used to have some sort of cart hanging from it and hydrologists would go out over the river and measure water flow etc. There was a cool one for years on the Mineral King king road that we used to ride across on. they eventually took the cart away but the cable remains.

bingo.