Route from Lyell Fork to Hutchings Creek?

[AaronRDavis]

I am seeking some advice about a route I plan to take from Upper Lyell Fork of the Merced trail into the Hutchings Creek Basin next week. Please see map with my roughly sketched idea here: https://imgur.com/a/X2qp8wL . For anyone familiar with this area, how does this look? Is there an optimal location to leave the main trail and begin working toward Hutchings Creek? Should I stay on the left/northwest of the creek the whole way up? While it does not appear to be overly technical, I can only determine so much with satellite images and slope angle shading, so any thoughts about this route and visiting this area are welcome.

[cgundersen]

Hi Aaron,

Apologies if this misses the mark, but I was unable to open your link. Nevertheless, I was in that area last August (sadly, we caught lots of smoke from the fires further North), and left the trail well before the creek crossing (in other words, as soon as the ridge trail above Washburn Lake begins to turn southerly from its due-East inclination, we left the trail) to begin ascending into the Lyell Fork. The terrain is pretty much wide open and yes, you'll be avoiding downed trees and little lumps and bumps, but it's a welcome relief from the trail. An almost unavoidable feature is the wide meadow that you'll hit several hundred yards into the journey which is essentially where Hutchings creek merges with the Lyell fork (it'll be obvious in the photos below). The three photos I'll post include a shot up at the ridge roughly where Hutchings creek descends to meet the Lyell fork. In addition, there's a shot up-canyon from that big meadow and another shot down-canyon from very close to the lake immediately beneath Ansel Adams peak. Both will give you some idea of the (relatively gentle) terrain you'll be facing. Finally, I posted a TR in 2018 or 2019 in which my buddy and I accessed Hutchings creek basin from the North (i.e.., from Lewis Creek basin) and camped at Lake 11139 before departing the basin via Sluggo pass. You'll find mote photos in that post. I hope the smoke patterns are more favorable for you, because it's a spectacular area (and obviously, if you do not want to follow Hutchings creek, you can always head up canyon to Sluggo pass and get to Hutchings basin that way).
Cameron

[AaronRDavis]

Cameron, thank you for the information and photos. Looks like some lovely terrain to explore.

[erutan]

You can cut a little closer to the creek if you want, but that's roughly the route we took last summer. Parts are a bit ledgey (the short red bits of slope shading) but nothing technical or scary, you might need to backtrack a little bit here or there if you hit a micro cliff out depending on where you go down.

Generally anything below 30% slope shading is very optimistic in the Sierra, and not worth spending too much time worrying over.

[cgundersen]

Hi Aaron,

I went back for a walk down memory lane for my last transit of Hutchings creek basin and here's the HST trip report: TR Agnew,Maclure,Simmons, Lyell, Rodgers, so if you want to check out more photos, just search those terms (and cgundersen as the author). It's a very dramatic area! Cameron