R03/R01 TR: Lamarck Col to Piute Pass loop - 9/8/22-9/14/22

[scottmiller]

The route started over Lamarck Col, followed by Evolution Valley, Piute Canyon, Humphrey's Basin, and out Piute Pass.
Parking at North Lake has changed in the last several years. There is a large parking lot next to something having to do with stables. I mention this because the signage is very clear about where you CAN'T park, but not clear about where you CAN park.
The trailhead is by the campground bathroom. The Lamarck Lakes trail is excellent all the way up to the final ascent. We stopped at Upper Lamarck Lake for the night. We did not see any campsites near the shore. On the east side of the outlet stream, there are many campsites above the lake. Some are sheltered, but with no view of the lake. We went to the top of a knoll and found a very exposed site with an excellent view of the lake. The weather was good, so we were fine.
The weather report made it very clear that Hurricane Kay was going to have an impact, so we were forewarned. Nevertheless, day two was very good weather. The hike over Lamarck Col is strenuous; there is a lot of terrain above 12,000 feet. We got to the area below the final ascent and I got out my photo of the route across the snow to the rock shaped like the John Muir hut. The photo was not as helpful as it could have been because there was no snow at all. However, we could see the John Muir hut rock, so we knew where to go. We were not wild about the ascent up the rocks, but we noticed that off to the left there was a use trail going up a talus-free route straight to the top. I had my doubts, but it looked so easy and well-worn that I figured that we would try it. I thought it likely that it would result in a gigantic cliff, but up we went anyway.
Sure enough, it ended in a gigantic cliff, overlooking another eastern Sierra canyon. So, we turned around and went back down. We went across the sand over to the toe of the mini-glacier, and started up.
There was something of a use trail, but it was so steep, gravelly, and slippery that it was easier and safer to go into beetle mode and just climb up the rocks, which were stable and small. Near the top the use trail turned into something respectful for the last 20 feet or so, which at least allowed us to scale the pass standing up like humans. The view down to Darwin Lakes was great.
It took about 1 1/2 hours to get down to the lakes. Use trails abound, but basically you just walk between the boulders and down the occasional shelf and chute. There is probably an ideal route where you could just walk all the way. When you get to the bottom and look up, it looks like 2,000 feet of hellish boulder hopping, but you can't tell that there is dirt around almost all the boulders, so it's more like walking around boulders instead of on them. The view from Google Earth clarifies that.
There is a happy little angler's trail around the north side of the lakes, interspersed with shelves and boulder fields ranging from easy to very very annoying. The end of the 4th lake has a lot of huge boulders near the shore, so I opted to go higher where the boulders are smaller. Some boulder fields you can practically skip across, but not this one. We camped at the end of the 2nd lake, on the south side of the trail. Later, we found some excellent and well-protected sites on the north side of the trail, at the western end of lake #2.
The weather was starting to deteriorate, but it looked good enough to sleep outside the tent and enjoy the full moon, which we did. Later that night, it started to rain, so into the tent we went. The morning was cloudy, but not raining. We resolved to basically live in our rain gear for the day.
Shortly after we started, it started raining, and pretty soon it was raining hard. Some thunder, and then some fierce wind, and then a lot of hail. We were still up at 11,000 feet, so it was pretty crazy. Lightening was happening up in the clouds, and it was close. We probably should have dropped packs and assumed the position, be we were close to where the trail descended rapidly, so we decided to run for it to a lower altitude. Also, the hail was kind of painful. We lost and found the trail a few times, which at that point was not so important, but we had been there before so we knew that when we started the steep descent, a trail would be very handy.
We got to a point where the trail petered out, with two possibilities: go down and follow the creek, or use the upper route to switchback down the shelves. We opted for the upper route, which eventually went nowhere with no sign of a trail. However, we were able to look way down and see the trail. It was, of course, following the creek. Instead of returning to the point of our wrong decision, we decided to just head straight down. Following the shelves and chutes, we made it easily. It would have been a fun bit of route finding if it hadn't been raining like hell.
By then, the hail and lightening had stopped, so we continued down in the rain, which eventually petered out. We were headed for the junction of the JMT, but my goal was to get to where there was no more hail on the ground, which would have been futile because we later found that a vast area had been in the same storm. It was a very big storm.
A funny thing happened next. We noticed that the trail, which was not very clear, suddenly became a wilderness freeway, very clear and well built. The sun came out and we stopped for lunch and saw several people coming up. I asked the first hiker where she was headed, and she replied Evolution Lake, and I said that was on the JMT, and she said we were on the JMT. No wonder the trail was in such good shape. Somehow we had joined the JMT without realizing it. I guess were totally focused on going down, so we didn't notice the junction. Still, it was kind of embarrassing to not even know what trail we were on.
A little further on, well into the afternoon, we met a hiker going up, and he was pondering going over Lamarck Col. After all, he said, it was a full moon. Damn. He had been over Lamarck Col several times, so he probably knew the best route, but still.
We found a campsite somewhere close to Evolution Meadow. It rained off and on, and it was clear that we were sleeping in the tent that night.
The next day, the weather started great; sunny with handsome clouds. We descended to the San Joaquin River, and enjoyed the hike along the spectacular gorge. We then went up Piute Canyon and camped a little past Hutchinson Meadows. It was a beautiful night.
The next day we continued up Piute Canyon. Our destination was Humphrey's Basin, and the original plan was to go up French Canyon and over Puppet Pass, but we had done that before, and we had no desire to be in a hail storm again at 11,000 feet, so we continued up the canyon and turned off the trail to Desolation Lake.
Desolation Lake gets mixed reviews, but I thought it was wonderful. It definitely lives up to its name. Nobody is going to turn a photo of Desolation Lake into a jigsaw puzzle, but it has its own weird beauty. We found a campsite close to where the trail meets the lake; a low wall on the lake side of the trail. There were a couple of sites about a quarter of a mile further, where the draw comes down from Forsaken Lake (desolation, forsaken, you get the picture for what Humphrey's Basin is like), but we decided to stay put. Immediately after we put up the tent it started raining, and it rained hard for two hours. Thanks, Hurricane Kay. The rain stopped long enough to eat dinner and get enough interest in life to go to sleep. The rain pummeled down off and on all night, and in the morning it was still cloudy, but clear enough to see snow on Mount Humphrey.
We had a bit of a dilemma at that point, because the plan was to make that day, Tuesday, a day to hang out and do some day hikes, and then make our pre-exit hike the next day. If Tuesday had been a travel day, we would have donned the rain gear and headed off. The question was if the day would clear up enough to be a good hanging-out day, and it looked hopeful as we ate breakfast. Then it clouded up again and rained hard for a half an hour, so we decided to exit a day early.
The hike down to the Piute Pass trail, and over the pass, was in cloudy weather, but as we went over the pass it got rainy and very windy. Also, very cold. It felt like it was going to snow to me. Hikers coming in from the east looked like they were hiking into their doom. They didn't want to stop and chat.
We stopped at Piute Lake. There are many campsites on the north side with varying degrees of lake view versus protected. For obvious reasons, we were leaning strongly towards protected, but we compromised on sort of protected but with a great view. The weather continued to tease, with low clouds breaking up into blue sky and then closing up again. It rained during dinner, but then it cleared up enough that I could wrap my sleeping bag around me and play guitar and enjoy the view down into the Owens Valley. By bed-time it had cleared up enough that I slept outside. I passed out at 7:30 and woke up an hour later to see a cloudless sky and the Sierra stars in their glory. They faded as the half moon rose, which was ten times brighter than any full moon in the city where I live. Miles and miles away to the east, probably in the White Mountains, a massive thunder storm was filling the sky with nearly constant lightening. Someone out there was catching hell, and I was glad it wasn't me.
The next day was cold, frost on my sleeping bag, frost everywhere. I usually go to the Sierras in early September, so that was normal. The weather was perfect as we walked out. We passed a lot of people coming in, most of them old geezers like us. A typical demographic for a Wednesday in September. We got to Bishop and I had a couple of beers and a pretty decent and appropriately greasy Reuben sandwich at the Mountain Rambler, and that was that. It was a wonderful trip.
Some questions remain:
- Would I go over Lamarck Col again? Dang, that is a tough pass, but yes I would. It lands you right in the thick of things. The worst part of that route, to me, is the trail along the Darwin Lakes. Not too bad if you hit it early in the day, but after a nearly-13,000 foot pass it was rough.
- Would I head out when the weather report was not good? I did that twice this year, the first time was during the August freaky monsoon time. That was some crazy-ass weather, especially with the swollen creeks. I'm not sure I would do that again, but the "storm off of Baja California" scenario is pretty common, and whereas there was rain, the weather was mostly fine or at least OK.
Gear notes:
- After last month's monsoon experience with a fairly run of the mill rain jacket that did not exactly keep me dry, I bought an embarrassingly expensive Arc'teryx Beta Hadron jacket. It worked so well I wanted to kiss it.
- I had read that Oboz shoes are slippery on wet surfaces, and I had experienced that myself in the city on metal elevator covers and on waxed floors. However, I scrambled up and down majorly wet steep granite in them, and they worked fine.
- I have a new pack, the Granite Gear Blaze 60, which claims to have a water-proof material. Maybe so, but the interior of my pack got wet, even with a pack cover. Still a very comfy pack, though.
- In my never-ending quest for camp shoes, I got some thick Seal Skinz waterproof socks. They are waterproof, but they seem to radiate cold through the soles. You might as well be barefoot. I'll use them when I go to a rocky beach.

[Wandering Daisy]

Thanks for the report. When you say "we", how many of you? Did you take any photos?

When you mentioned you took the wrong trail that looked into another basin, then retreated back to the correct route to Lamarck Col it brought back memories of camping down at the Sholer Holes (lakes in that "other basin") and in the morning, a poor fellow came past me, thinking he was in Darwin Basin. I told him the bad news that no, he was in the Sabrina Basin. He had to bivy on the route, said it was really horrible and no way was going back up it. He followed me out to the main trails in Sabrina Basin. Now that you mention that there was a distinct trail up to that wrong "pass" it makes more sense to me how he got lost. Good call on your part to realize it was not right.

Lamarck Col is actually easier with snow. I too have missed the trail from Darwin Basin down to the JMT. Last two times, however, I found it. There are parts that are ambiguous- easy to go wrong.

[scottmiller]

Two of us, and no photos.
Going down from there looked impossible to me. That guy was nuts. I knew it was wrong because I had read about coming up the wrong way from the south. I just hadn't figured out that the same thing would happen coming from the north. Duh. Also, I had been at the top coming from the south as a day hike from Darwin Bench, so I knew what the Darwin Canyon looks like. It's incredibly awesome is what it looks like. Although the view down into the Sholer Holes was pretty great too, especially because of the dramatic drop. Stunning, especially when you're expecting a route down. The way those ridges converge is very cool.
The erroneous trail is so tempting because it is so easy, and so obviously well traveled. It's like five minutes up to the top. If it had been as gnarly looking as the actual route, I would have gone the right way. It's a bit of a stretch, but I can sort of say that I climbed Lamarck Col twice in one day!

[cgundersen]

Daisy/Scott,
Your comments reminded me of a TR from last year in which robertseeburger described a route that he had made work to get out of the Schober Holes. If you look at his photos, where he ascended did connect with the Lamarck trail and my guess is you were peeking into the Schober basin from one of the (scary) gaps in the ridgeline further to the west. Cameron

[michaelzim]

Scott - Thanks for your TRs (other one ref. Edison/Pine Creek) even sans pics. Seems like you have been getting your fair share of rain to make up for the "blue sky" years! Indeed, it sure has been wet this year. It's made me wonder if it will allow the Sierra trees to survive the 'mega drought' though, as with no summer rains here locally big swathes of even pretty darn big/old Redwoods are dying on the slopes near me.
A question if I may...Do you take no photos on purpose or is it an equipment thing?
Ta much ~ Michaelzim

[scottmiller]

I don't know why I don't take photos. Maybe because I have a really good visual memory, the technical term for which is hyperphantasia. I have a lot of images in my mind that I will never forget; Seven Gables, Grizzly Lake in the Trinities, looking east from Italy pass while the storm develops, and so on. For this trip, I'll never forget the lightening at 11,000 feet on Darwin Bench, for sure! My backpacking buddies take a few, which I'm happy to get. I haven't got any from this trip yet.

[Bishop_Bob]

Nobody is going to turn a photo of Desolation Lake into a jigsaw puzzle

I will accept that challenge. Stay tuned....

[Bishop_Bob]

I recall stubbornly going east over Piute Pass during the 2018 monsoon (the day the landslide closed Hwy 168 above Aspendell) and not hesitating despite driving rain and constant thunder even when I saw a lightening bolt strike between the pass and my location about a half mile from the pass.

[Harlen]

Great writeup sans photos. No matter, your descriptions are vivid. Congratulations on your intrepid route finding, and for handling the rough weather. Did you hike without fishing poles too? Then what did you eat?

[15lbpack]

Do you count the 2nd lake starting from the west side?