Amphitheater Lake (Mineral King area)

[SashatheBear]

Hi all,

Somehow after several years of visiting Sequoia, I only just found this website!

On a recent hike to Eagle Lake and Mosquito Lakes, I ran into a ranger and we got into talking. He noted that his favorite lake in Sequoia NP is Amphitheater Lake. Has anyone ventured there? Thinking about hiking over Franklin Pass and then going overland up the drainage. Wondering if there are any good camping spots along the shoreline and how difficult going over the ridge to Monarch might be.

[c9h13no3]

http://www.highsierratopix.com/communit ... tal#p77874

Also: Welcome . The cross country passes section is one of the reasons I joined originally, it's a great resource.

[giantbrookie]

It is possible to work out a class 2 route from Monarch Lakes but the route finding on the west side may be a bit elaborate. The SW slope/face of Sawtooth Peak is laced with steep class 2 chutes that look hairy on the topo map and when looking at them end on. In 1969 the group I was with descended blind to upper Monarch L. from the summit of Sawtooth and kept the entire route at class 2 by side stepping the various cliff steps. This is relevant to crossing over to Amphitheater because it gives you an idea of what the worst (steepest) slopes E and above upper Monarch L are like. You will see on the topo that the average slope angle of the eastward/southeastward slopes above the plateau north of Amphitheater are a bit gentler than the slopes directly above the lake.

What I would do is to look for a break in the cliffs above upper Monarch as low on the south ridge of Sawtooth as possible; the gradient is less steep than it is at the low point to the south. Once atop the south ridge you should be able to find a reasonable class 2 way down. I figure the SE-draining chute at the base of Sawtooth's S ridge would be a candidate for a scree/talus chute. If that looks gnarly one can always traverse a bit to the NE (above 11600) to where the SE slope of Sawtooth gets less steep and you'd be guaranteed to make it down to the plateau keeping it at class 2. This route would require some on-the-spot terrain reading and improvisation so you need to be comfortable with that sort of thing before trying this.

[SashatheBear]

This is all amazing intelligence. Thank you for kindly sharing. I think we’ll likely just go an in and out route from Soda Creek and exit back over Franklin. Not the sexiest, but the safest.

[Shawn]

Just to add on what GB said......

I've likewise descended from Sawtooth Peak, a couple of times, using the south-west ridge. The drop into Amphitheatre Lake looked easier to me than dropping down to Upper Monarch, and we just walked down to it without issue. Of course everyone has to gauge their own capabilities, but if I were to seek the most direct route to Amphitheatre Lake I would hike to Lower Monarch Lake, take the fisherman's trail up to Upper Monarch, then traverse the class 2 pass over and down to Amphitheatre Lake .


The red line was our route down, the green line goes to Amphitheatre Lake

Green Line Descends to Amphitheatre Lake

Route to Amphitheatre Lake

Pass to Amph Lake Marked Up.jpg (145.06 KiB) Viewed 233 times

Amphitheatre Lake From Pass

Amph Lake.jpg (115.15 KiB) Viewed 233 times

[SashatheBear]

Those photos are incredibly helpful. Is it worth camping at Amphitheater Lake? It doesnt look like there is even much flat space along the lake shore to pitch a tent.

[cgundersen]

Hi Sasha,
Shawn nailed it with those photos, so all I'll add is that a buddy and I reached Amphitheater the morning after a rainstorm forced us to camp at Crystal Lake instead of going over the ridge to Amphitheater. Roguephotonic did a writeup of Crystal pass in the off-trail passes section, and we found it to be less gnarly than he described. At the same time, the lake itself was wonderful, and we rued the fact that we had not gotten to stay there. There are plenty of spots to camp in the plateau area (left of the lake in Shawn's shot). The canyon trucking was pretty straightforward, so you should have no problem getting there from the trail. Cameron