2022 Backcountry Current Conditions Reports

[wildhiker]

My daughter took her 5 year old daughter (my granddaughter) on her first backpack trip to Island Lake in the Grouse Lakes Roadless Area of the Tahoe National Forest, starting from Carr Lake trailhead.

The road to the trailhead was in decent condition, with several Priuses parked in the lot (of about 25 cars total). I was there last June and the road was pretty rough and needed high clearance on the last 1/2 mile, so the Forest Service must have worked on it last year.

Trails were dry. No snow except streaks on the north faces of the distant Black Buttes. Windy, but that kept the bugs away.

Even mid-week, Island Lake area was crowded with campers. At least 10 groups, some of them large youth groups.

-Phil

[kdemtchouk]

Copper Creek TH -> Granite Pass -> Simpson Meadow -> JMT Southbound -> Woods Creek -> Road's End TH

I fastpacked the northern ~1/2 of the Big SEKI Loop this weekend. The trail was in great condition up & over Granite Pass, all the way down to Simpson Meadow. Slightly overgrown in Simpson Meadow, but nothing crazy.

I had planned on camping at the Middle Fork & Cartridge Creek intersection, but it looks like a trail crew abandoned a bunch of their food/gear there and the bears got into it. Huge trash heap that I didn't want to camp near, FYI to anyone planning on camping there.

There were dry thunderstorms every afternoon between 3and 7pm. Very limited patches of snow on the N side of Mather Pass, by-passable with easy scrambling around the snow-covered switchbacks.

Creek crossings were all straightforward, with the worst being Palisade Creek (knee deep wade at 8am).

Mosquitos were hard to predict. Strongest between 9.5k and 11.5k ft. I brought a headnet and never used it in camp or while hiking.

[boryas]

Route taken: South Lake -> Dusy Basin -> Big Pete Meadow -> Evolution Lake -> Piute Trail Jct. -> Piute Lake -> North Lake

Elevations: Low of ~8k at JMT-Piute creek trail, high of ~12k at Bishop Pass and Muir Pass

Difficult section encountered: Significant ice/snow on Muir pass, but with good packed-in foot steps. Several inches of fresh snow stuck in a decent snow storm on 6/22.

Special equipment needed/used: None

Extra notes: No serious snow over Bishop Pass, just a couple patches. No difficult creek crossings: we crossed Evolution creek on 6/23 at the alternate crossing (barely knee deep, very slow) but saw several PCT-ers using the trail crossing. Piute creek crossing at Hutchinson meadow was pleasant rock-hopping. Mosquitos were worst in the canyons/meadows below treeline: like around our camp at Big Pete Meadow, McLure Meadow, and coming up Piute Canyon. Nothing terrible, though we put on our headnets a few times. Aside from the full on snow storm >11k on 6/22, pretty nice weather. Barely any thunder despite a bit of rain, with lots of sun to dry off in between. Not too hot, either.

[gilsurf]

Route taken: Mono Pass - Kuna Crest Pass (Helen Lake Pass) - Kuna, Lyell north basins @ 11k - Maclure north slabs - Maclure Lake - Amelia Earhart Pass - Ireland lake

Elevations: 10-11.5k

Difficult section encountered: Maclure Lake outlet

Special equipment needed/used: none

Possible alternative routes: Lower Maclure Creek to AE Pass

Weather: 10 deg cooler than normal, 10-20 MPH winds at night. Usual burning rays during the day.

Kuna Crest Pass (Helen Pass): Snow on steep center pitch. Normal route snow free
Kuna, Lyell N basins at 11K minimal to no snow
Maclure north slabs to Maclure Lake interspersed sun cupped snowfields (slows travel)
Maclure Lake outlet: Deep snow with margins receding - one spot with 10' deep cavern
Maclure Lake: Semi-frozen

[SSSdave]

Subject: Hilton Creek Trail 29E04

Route: Trailhead: Rock Creek Road at 9840+, trail 29E04 to Hilton Creek, highest elevation 10380.

https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=37.4671 ... =mbt&a=mba

Elevations: 9800 to 10400 feet
Difficult section encountered on this trip: 5 miles of mostly dry trail. Water will be available for a few more weeks at two small stream crossings at about the 0.7 and 1.0 mile points. No water within the topo 2.0 mile stream ravine. At 2.8 mile point east and below trail, are willow seep meadows with some flowing water.

Trail 29E04 through much sun exposed sandy moraine sagebrush lodgepole pine landscapes, is heavily used by horse packers thus the trail is often extremely dirty sand ground up with horse apples. The whole ridge between Rock and Hilton drainages has considerable moraine granite sands. The soft sand requires more effort to walk atop so visitors often use areas beside the main deeply ground up horse path. A trail to avoid mid day when the dark trail dirt is radiating heat.

Special equipment needed/used:
Possible alternative routes:

[dearantler]

Route: Tyee Lakes-Blue Lake-Midnight Lake-Hungry Packer Lake-Lake George TH

Elevations: 8813 - 11588 feet

Difficult section encountered on this trip:
- No real difficulties, but somewhat rocky and steep between Table Mountain and George Lake.

Special equipment needed/used:
- Trekking poles
- Head net (or extra tolerance, which weighs even less)

Possible alternative routes:
- None

[michaelzim]

No time yet to do a comprehensive report, but see separate post/thread below for a semi-update.

Trail conditions can be very different after the big storm July 31st. (and rains nearly every day) depending on location.
Creeks were normal low, but currently some are still high.
Some are creamy with silt, while smaller side streams are clear.
The Sierra's are DAMP...I was "moist" a lot of the past 9 days!
Mosquitoes - see mosquitoes section.

Michaelzim

[commonloon]

Route: Rowell Meadows TH -> Sugarloaf -> Roaring River -> Cloud Canyon -> Whaleback (summit) -> Old Coppermine Pass/Peak -> old mining "Trail" -> Deadman Canyon -> return

Elevations: 7,200 - 12,000+ feet

Difficult section encountered on this trip:
- Creeks and streams were swollen from the recent thunderstorms. Lots of water running down trails in places and some mud.
- Old Coppermine Pass has about a 200ft section of loose and crumbly rock [edit: I think I went over in the wrong location].

Special equipment needed/used:
- None

Possible alternative routes:
- Cloud Canyon or Deadman canyon could have done separately as out and back routes.

This was a great trip! I will try to write a trip report soon. I saw a "weather window" between monsoon cycles and had great weather both days... that said, all the water was a good reminder to not under estimate how much rain a Sierra T-storm can dump and to be prepared.

[erutan]

2022-08-26 to 09-03: Onion Valley > Dragon Pass > White Fork Pass > White Fork Saddle > Bench Lake > Pinchot Pass > Woods Lake > Baxter Peak (SoSHR alt route reversed) > Baxter Pass

WATER

Snow tiny swimming pool sized patches in occasional north facing slopes.

Most lakes were 1-3 feet low, but outlets of all major lakes were flowing and finding non-stagnant water wasn't an issue.

Slopes were dried out enough to be solid but terrain was still holding a good amount of groundwater from the monsoon. A best case scenario overall!

TRAILS & PASSES

Golden Trout Lakes Trail had a bit of erosion damage - it's normally a rough trail though.

Dragon Pass felt looser on the drop of the west side before it was sliding but self-braking. More care had to be taken as some of the smaller talus would start collapsing but it never felt unsafe and once down to a reasonable slope angle things felt normal. Took the wide approach to dropping to the pond below Dragon Lake vs the more aggro direct chutes.

We chatted with an old timer that HIGHLY discouraged a direct descent from Gould Pass, the normal boot-ski chutes below the pass had the soil "cemented" vs loose which was very treacherous. For context, he thought the 2/3 ridge walk from Kearsarge Pass to Dragon Peak was fun and didn't remember anything out of the ordinary for the eastern approach to Dragon Pass. Keeping wide would be advised.

Dragon Lake trail had some erosion in the middle at one point, but still very easily followable until down to the slabs above the PCJMT. PCJMT & Rae Lakes loop recieve ~2/3 of SEKI's trail maintenance funding so they were in good shape heh.

XC up to Window Lake was very straightforward, as was the mostly class 1 approach to White Fork Pass. The drop was pretty standard 2 - wiggle around from stable talus & grassy ramps & solid rock as terrain dictates.

White Fork lakes were surprisingly pretty, and the white fork, was uh, white. More so than other drainages in the area, reminded me of parts of Horse Creek out of Bridgeport. Easy traverse from the lakes to below White Fork Saddle.

Rarely visited area, so I'll toss in GPS coordinates for groomed camps (we only saw two) to minimize future impact. It usually annoys me when people point out popular camps in commonly visited basins, but this is different IMO:

A nice camp on the left (north) peninsula of the far lake (east) if dropping @ 36.91276, -118.43784

A camp above the white fork creek above the creek @ 36.91933, -118.43134. Clear water coming down from the NE above the white fork.

Don't make more if you come there!

I think we we stayed a bit north/high of the normal route, but it worked great - mostly low angle small grey talus which more or less locked itself into place, then an easy boot ski down the far side with minimal talus due to drop location before solid ground to the lakes below.

Bench Lake Trail was in good shape, as was the PCJMT up and over Pinchot Pass. We were at the "backup" peninsula and two backpackers came up to an existing party on the "prime" one an hour before sunset and wanted to camp right next to them. They were told off and went elsewhere after being told "there's plenty of sites that aren't 40ft from us" heh. That's what happens when photo locations become a "thing" I guess. Ugh.

We were originally planning to go over Coliseum Col (and Coliseum peak) but poor sleep had us taking the Sawmill Pass trail in, which was in great shape. It'd get weak in wet/meadowy areas but overall was great to follow.

Sawmill TH seems like it's 4x4 bypass, so in order to make a non-repetitive trip I decided to try the SoSHR alternate route of heading up to Baxter Peak from Woods dropping back down to Upper Baxter Lake. BAD IDEA. Cross Country Experience Required should be mountaineering experience and disregard for quality of life.

It was fine up until nearing the bottom chute (between the "g" of stocking lake and the O in CO on USGS quad), steps started talus moving ~3-4 feet above me which is always fun. Careful footing prevailed and I was happy to have a solid class 3 wall on climbers left of the chute. Once up the ridge itself was very solid, we kept close and off the west for the most part.

Getting from the ridge to the peak. Ugh. Nothing looked like safe Class 2, and the moderate 3 all looked to lead to large overhanging unstable talus. Wiggled up, sometimes kicking out talus until a slope was fit to step on, happy whenever on solid Class 3, and dislodged some fairly large talus when upclimbing chossy garbage.

Made it to the peak with some minor grazes, enjoyed the amazing view due to dramatic lighting, and felt justified at the amount of SPS baggers complaining about choss & it not being a fun/good climb. Slowly squiggled our way down to grasshopper pass where the talus stabilized, then slowly made our way down to the Pea Soup Lake and an easy down to Baxter where we encountered a tired backpacker 30min after sunset who refused to camp next to us and found his own spot. Still some people with style out there!

Baxter Pass Trail from the west was fine, it comes back firm again around the upper Baxter Lake and was pretty much going up McGee Pass with a few steep sandy spots you'd want to slow down a bit if coming down. No water from Baxter Lake to where the trail cuts near north oak creek ~11k, but not a bad carry for one of the four nasties.

Coming down was way better than I thought it'd be - some large talus on the trail, some minor spills on it, but always easily followable. Maybe 10 downed trees, some small, some not, but none of them were difficult to bypass or step over. A lot of bushes to brush past (having thicker long pants really helped!). One portion was genuinely overgrown, but could be pushed through easily. The upper crossing was a bit odd - the trail around that area would have been nicer before the fire, but the loss of shade was sporadic. Lots of small spots to camp between 9k and 11.2k. A hard washout had a lower bypass, areas that were less distinct were fairly well cairned (I added some)

I'd recommend dropping while there's heavy cloud cover - it wasn't much warmer than some of the sunny mornings at 11k since this monsoon system came in. Heard a rattlesnake just below the wilderness sign and watched it go under a rock well off trail. Slowed down the final half mile a bit.

[Wandering Daisy]

Talked to FS guys who were on the trail taking supplies to snow survey stations. They said rain two weeks ago was significant. Almost all creeks had some flow. Weather was perfect! Lows supposed to be 40, but three days there was frost in the meadows. Very few people. It really did not look dried out at all. Even some green grass.

ALL trails were in good condition. I especially appreciated the cairns when the trails crossed granite slabs. Trails looked like they have been recently worked on. Newer trail junction signposts. A lot of "no-camping- restoration" posts on campsites.

9/29 Crabtree TH to Piute Lake. Flows in creek from Bear Lake, next creek in Piute Meadow. Lake along way did not look any worse than normal late season. NO bugs- not even flies. Evidence of rain still on the trail- not dusty at all, some wet seeps. One tent across the lake from me. Saw nobody on the trail.

9/30 Piute Lake to between Upper and Lower Buck Lake. Step across Cherry Creek on rocks. Pretty good water if you needed to get it for drinking. Creek flowing into Deer Lake flowing- step across on rocks. Flow between Buck Lakes, step across rocks. Geese flew over, very noisy. Did not see anyone the entire day.

10/1 Buck Lakes to Emigrant Lake. More noisy geese in morning. Creek above Buck Lake meadow was flowing- rocks a bit under water- one shoe got wet. A ton of geese and ducks on Emigrant lake inlet area meadows. There was quite a ruckus all night! Ducks vs Geese. Breezy on lake. A group of 4 guys and two individual women walked by my campsite. Morning frost on grasses.

10/2 Emigrant Lake to Latora Lake. Good flow into Emigrant Lake- could step across on the gravel bar at the trail. Good flow in creek from Horse Meadow. Even seeps from the hillside to the south. Had to wade (mid-calf deep) across inlet to Huckleberry Lake. Saw nobody the entire day. A few mosquitoes - new hatch. Saw one pile of bear poo - probably a few weeks old. Only sign of bear the entire trip.

10/3 Latora Lake to Grouse Lake. Good flow on creek just north of the lake. Frost on grass at inlet end. Flow out of Wood Lake- step across on rocks and climb up on a stump. Good flow (could hear it even when well above the creek) from creek out of Wood Lake. Hop across rocks to cross twice. At lower crossing, met FS pack train: 12 mules, 2 wranglers, 1 supervisor. They were supplying four snow survey stations for the winter. Flow in Cherry Creek - step across on rocks. Stagnant puddles above Grouse Lake. Green grass and lots of lily pads at Grouse Lake. Met one fellow and a couple on the trail. Dusk mosquitoes. The area above and below Grouse Lake had lots of dead trees. Lots have been cut down.

10/4 Walk out. Good flow in creek from Bear Lake. Met a couple day-hiking from TH.

PS- When I got my permit, I asked about water conditions and the front desk people said only expect water in lakes and all streams were dry. I changed my route based on this. Sort of ticks me off that internally the FS work crews knew that there was plenty of water in creeks due to the storm, but these two branches of FS seemed not to communicate at all.