High Loop around Mt. Brewer

[cgundersen]

Hi Mav,
If you want to volunteer to take Joy through that ****hole, be my guest. I learned a couple new vocabulary words. And, she's usually willing to do just about anything up there, but I definitely (unwittingly) exceeded the limits this time. We're still arguing over how to re-word our marriage vows. I'm not sure that adventure quite captures the essence. But, it does create an opportunity for a fine whine!
Cameron

[maverick]

Hi Mav,
If you want to volunteer to take Joy through that ****hole, be my guest. I learned a couple new vocabulary words. And, she's usually willing to do just about anything up there, but I definitely (unwittingly) exceeded the limits this time. We're still arguing over how to re-word our marriage vows. I'm not sure that adventure quite captures the essence. But, it does create an opportunity for a fine whine!
Cameron

Tell Joy I said that experiences like that builds character, and/or a colorful vocabulary to boot!

[Ashery]

Research? Pft. Who doesn't love a completely unnecessary bushwhack? Or misjudging how much of a slog it'd be to get directly out of a gully one's grown tired of following, leaving one both exhausted and short on water with several miles to go?

Not that I've ever done either of those things,

[cgundersen]

Hi Ashery,
From the photo you posted, I infer you had the pleasure either of Sphinx or Cunningham Creek (the latter of which Levi's recent post implied was a ton of fun, too). So, which nefarious route did you take (or did you do both)?
Cameron

[Ashery]

The original plan was to go up Sphinx Creek and do a loop utilizing Longley, but I only remembered vague snippets for navigating the cornice (To use the north side). Couple that with a complete lack of experience with snow and having already gotten rather lucky when sliding down a very mild incline on some icy snow, I opted to play it safe and just back off. After giving things a bit of thought, I decided to use Brewer Creek as my route back to Road's End, heading NW shortly after getting to the lowest lake (9735).

[maverick]

I decided to use Brewer Creek as my route back to Road's End, heading NW shortly after getting to the lowest lake (9735).

That is a nice little lake.

[Harlen]

cgunderson writes:

The desultory final note is that I’d expected the descent to the Avalanche Pass trail to be a bit of a schlep, but it turned out to be far worse. It is among the most challenging bushwhacks I’ve ever done in the Sierra (and that includes climbing UP to Gardiner Lakes from Mist Falls). My recollections from 30 years ago were clearly off the mark, so we either chose the worst possible route, or conditions have deteriorated over time

.
Great trip Cameron, perhaps one of those that will get better as it "ages." I wish we would have encountered you guys up in Bench Canyon, had you gone there instead.
We had a great trip with the boys up East Creek to Sphinx back in 2009. Is the valley in the first photo below the one you thrashed your way down? Our friend Carleton here led us down with no undo troubles that I can recall. Our troubles were with the endless sun-cups on the route leading to Sphinx Lakes. Can you load some more photos to show us the final days of your trip? All the best, the Harlens.

Sun cup hell!

[cgundersen]

Ashery, Mav, Harlen,
Mav: We're getting ready to take two, early teenage nephews on their seminal Sierra backpacking trip and your HST meetup trip was just beyond the limits of what we wanted to tackle with them, so sorry we won't catch folks there (still, best to everyone we saw 4 years ago).
Ashery: OK, Brewer was option #3; how was that descent? And, yes, it's clear Mav likes that canyon, so I think you chose well. Getting thrashed on a slippery cornice is not high on my "to do" list.
Harlen: My wife is the photographer and when the going gets tedious, the photo-stream stops. Consequently, she did not record a single photo the last 2 days of the trip. I'll post the last two shots she took looking up Sphinx canyon and then out across the Sphinx plateau with Goddard in the far background. But, yes, we went down that same canyon in your first photo. And, we hit nary a sun cup: those are beauties right up there with the ones you guys (and Joy & I) enjoyed over Piute last year!
Cheers,
Cameron

Looking north across Sphinx lakes plateau

Looking south up Sphinx lakes basin

[Ashery]

To put it one way: After breaking camp in the morning (NNE of Big Brewer Lake, a bit over 400ft higher than it), I ended up missing a hot meal at the lodge by 15-30minutes. The only memory from the descent itself that really sticks in my mind was the descent down to the outlet of Big Brewer Lake; memories of large talus and a possible bypass of some of that talus that failed to work out. I don't recall anything after that being particularly memorable in terms of difficulty; just the occasional, easy bit of scrambling.

Here's the lake just below Big Brewer.

That is a nice little lake.

Nice enough that I decided to look towards the sun while taking my pictures of it,

[maverick]

Nice enough that I decided to look towards the sun while taking my pictures of it,

At sunset, when the granite and lake is ablaze with hues of orange and crimson is when it turns into some thing special.