Has anyone been over Gould Pass?

[Harlen]

https://kathywing.smugmug.com/Californi ... -r7bZcQL/A

Michael, I hope this photo got pasted in above... it's one of the links TurboHike kindly added for us. I reckon that the elusive Gould Pass is seen here. I think Maverick can confirm it, as the long, orange-colored talus slope that begins at the eastern side of the big lake on the west side of the pass, and hits the ridge above-- not necessarily at a low point. Is that it Mav, anyone? Thanks, "Ta" as you foreigner's say.... is "Wa" "you're welcome?"

p.s. Yes her nice photos did come across. The first 3 images show the talus slope to the ? pass. right?

[erutan]

I was using Secor's naming for it (not that he hasn't been a bit off before, with North Col arriving late when it had been used as a bypass for Cox Col for a while). Regardless I think it's worth differentiating as it's a completely different route.

“Gould Pass” (3820 m+; 12,720 ft+; 0.3 mi N of Mount Gould; UTM 770717)

[...]

There are two eastern approach variations. One is from the summit of Kearsarge Pass, by skirting the summit of Mount Gould and descending the ridge to the pass. The other is Dragon Pass. Climb the broad talus gully that leads west from Lake 3460 m+ (11,360 ft+) toward the ridge crest. This gully eventually ends among cliffs below the crest. From the top of the gully head southwest and climb class 2 ledges and talus to the Sierra crest. Either continue south along the crest to Gould Pass or go north a couple of hundred feet to a class 2 chute that descends the west side of the crest to Lake 3640 m+ (12,000 ft+).

Excerpt From: R.J. Secor. “The High Sierra, Peaks, Passes, Trails.”

I climbed up the broad Talus gully (easy) up to the cliff (easy) which is the approach for Dragon Peak, then made the mistake of going past the darker colored class 2 (3 *cough*) ledges for a chute that looked good from below but ended up being consequentially loose. I then went N on the ridge a bit as descrived and dropped down the class 2 chute which was steep loose in a totally fine self-braking way, and across the very stable talus of those 3 lakes above Dragon.

We took a more roundabout mellower way than the two direct chutes that drop into the northern end of Dragon Lake after being a bit spooked / skittish from the day before that I'd recommend if there may be snow lingering in the gulleys (and maybe even if there's not):

In a tl;dr Dragon Pass is more stable talus and some ledges but probably requires a bit more technique than Gould, which seems much more sloggy (granted I haven't been on it).

Here's someone else that did it, but unfortunately they took a different approach at the top so that doesn't clarify that zone: http://highsierratopix.com/community/vi ... =1&t=18519

[Harlen]

I like your route a lot. Gives the option to try for Dragon Pk., and your "roundabout way to Dragon Lake looks easier, and more interesting. We'll be heading for the outlet anyway, right? If I recall, there are nice camping spots there. Thanks for the clear, and erutite description.

[erutan]

Yeah it's the same from the east until you end up at the cliffband where people cut right up a gully to bag Dragon Peak... I climbed up it a little and looked out to the left where you cross up (the only challenging part of the route is gaining the ridge from that cliff band), picture below:

You can see a decent ledge system heading up on the darker rock, but I was like "eh do I feel like mantling with my pack on, I'll look for that class 2 - ooh nice chute". Wrong choice, just wiggle up those ledges.

Funny thing is we went up to 3460 then camped by Golden thinking we'd go Gould, looked at it and were like, ugh, what a slog, so got up in the morning and went to 3460 and did Dragon heh. It's all talus on the W until you get past the E lake. Past it is pretty solid ground with a little talus past the hill just W of the N lake so it's fast going once there. We actually dropped into the pond below Dragon Lake (it's a nice lazy gully down), but it's like 5 min walk up to the outlet, there’s a couple spots there of questionable distance from the outlet.

There's some decent slabs and little sandy spots scattered around if you don't have the steam to make it to Dragon Lake, if so fill up at the outlet between the western two lakes and drycamp wherever.

update: Ok, I just made http://highsierratopix.com/community/vi ... 48#p163248

[erutan]

The west side of Dragon Pass is the sandy bit nestled in black rock after the white band at the VERY left edge of the photo. Gould Pass is somewhere to the right of it in the photo.

[michaelzim]

@erutan Thank you for your super details and visuals of the Gould Pass puzzle. I agree that a separate entry for what should be called "Dragon Pass" (and not to be mixed up with North Dragon Pass) is warranted and is likely to make armchair pondering at home a lot clearer - though mulling it all has been a quite acceptable way to pass some winter downtime!

Your east side hike directly up from no-name lake 3,460 m.+/11,360 ft.+ looked the most likely route to me after perusing the topos and photos online. I wondered about the directions to start from Golden Trout Lake proper as some photos show huge amounts of scree or talus on the west and north-west sides going up. As you say, potentially a real slog. Maybe if truly aiming for "Gould Pass" and not your "Dragon Pass" that may make sense.
Am hoping to check this all out in early August if the weather and fire Gods are not being a pill. It could well be a veritable challenge for me either route as will break my altitude record by 700 ft. Somehow I have never been this far south into the real big stuff. Thus one enticement of going for the more southern version over "Gould Pass" whatever, is taking a brief side trip and clearing 13,000 ft. on Mt. Gould. At 70 I have doubts about getting much higher unless my inner gazelle comes forth big time!

P.S. @maverick Just a note on the HSTopix map with cross-country passes checked. [SEE BELOW] For some odd reason Gould Pass and Rae Col just to the east are marked in with green route lines. They are the only ones I have seen on that whole HST map! In addition, the route shown for Gould Pass is definitely "questionable" given the feedback in this thread and that from other reports. Maybe the green lines should be removed to match all the other entries???

Green Line at Gould, etc.

Again, thanks so much @erutan and maybe after August we can get a bit more down to add to your really stellar addition to the cross country passes section.

Best ~ Michaelzim

[erutan]

You're welcome - I 'd been holding off since that last little bit on the east side was still a bit of a puzzle, but felt like it was still worth contributing since it's a confusing area. I'd do it again - if nothing else it's super easy to get a walk up permit for Golden Lakes even with the new system hah. With people calling North Dragon just Dragon (North Dragon sounds much more aggressive!) and Gould/Dragon being used interchangeably it seemed worth defining what Dragon Pass is - a lot of descriptions say there's exposure on the ridge etc which must be North Dragon etc. I did notice it being called south dragon once, but that’s not a common thing.

http://highsierratopix.com/community/vi ... 84#p163284 I made a gould pass entry with a blank route description but the results of comparing trip reports and some basic analysis of the two passes in the comment below.

[erutan]

There’s some very nice camp spots along the eastern side of 3460m (and to the east and southern sides of the smaller lake below it) - golden trout lake itself is pretty rocky & exposed. For a day 1 you could hike up to the little meadow where the outlets meet, drop pack and hike up to golden trout and back, then pick it up and spend the night at 3460 to get an early start up the pass / help acclimate.

The ridgeline from dragon pass to Gould supposedly isn’t bad (there’s some videos of it on YouTube I didn’t watch) but that’s from the perspective of peak baggers going for both peaks. Would be useful for seeing if you want to come up dragon then ridgewalk over to Gould. You could also take a look at the W descent for Gould and compare them (looks less inviting to me, but cuts off some traverse time at the bottom).

[michaelzim]

@erutan Even more thanks!...You have certainly excelled at giving super tips and advice on the whole Gould Pass Puzzle.
Great add-on here about the expedient campsites too, as I may well be pretty pooped with first day pack + altitude gain by the time make it that far.

As for the climb up to the ridge, well will wait and see as even with all the info there are still some ?????? variations on the theme.
Like Kruger's comment for "Dragon" re: I should make it clear that while there isn’t much distance between you and the ridge-proper here, I found the moves to be solidly 4th class with lots of exposure. Not to mention you’re at something like 12,400’ by this point. Please travel with caution.
That class 4 reference is a bit Ummmmmmmm...as with a long trip pack on and my not super keeness on "exposure" I had wanted to stick to class 2 passes, or maybe a bit of mild class 3.
Likewise Bluewater says: There is a lot of exposure on the traverse along the wall at the top of Dragon Pass and I wouldn't want to go up the scree chute on the west side of Gould Pass.
Another "exposure" comment, which gives me visions of one of the standard photos for Class 3 where people are clambering along a knife-edge sans packs or just with day-packs. Again, the Ummmmmmmm...thing!

Thus my conclusion is that all this just adds another element of spice and adventure to the sojourn. Never before have I researched a route as thoroughly, so feel like I will have a much better chance of appreciating what I'm looking at when there in reality.

It's been fun fiddling with it in all directions waiting for the days to get longer ~ Thanks much... Michaelzim

[erutan]

@michaelzim Kruger was (intentionally) offroute - he went to the right from that white cliff band to go bag the peak and winged it from there, instead of turning left to either go up the ledges or further past that to the unstable chutes I tried. If you look at my photos of dragon pass it gets knife-edgey after the dragon pass dropoff with the white/pink rocks, but was wide and sloping before that.

not that many shots of the ridge because it wasn't that interesting, but the deer poop between these rocks made me smile a bit.

Bluewater came up Gould Pass and then down Dragon, so you wouldn't have the same amount of ridge traversal as he did (we did a couple hundred feet or so and there was zero exposure).

We didn't try bothering going over the pass the first day either and I'd hate to feel rushed near the top doing it. Dragon pass definitely isn't an easy pass, but I think that ledge system would make it a fairly reasonable one (or just move with an abundance of caution on the loose chutes beyond it).

If you just start from 3460 you can drop your pack at the white cliff band and then explore a bit until you see something you like.

We were on day 2 of 8 iirc - we can do 10 day trips with 58l exos packs with nothing huge outside (~half the space taken by bearikades lol) so we’re pretty tuned in gear wise but definitely not ultralight purists (beefy warm sleeping pads, hot meals, I had a fishing setup and a solar+battery setup).

I have some more analysis in a comment below gould pass placeholder entry in the xc passes subforum entry: http://highsierratopix.com/community/vi ... 87#p163287