Plan A: Our goal was to use Lamarck Col as a vehicle to access Ionian Basin and then loop back to the origin via Lake 10,212, Reinstein Col, Martha & Davis Lakes
PlanB: We got to the flanks of Wanda Pass and were groveling in a mess of 2-3 feet deep suncups when it became obvious that we’d be watching the sun set before we reached the ridge. The practical alternative was to retreat back to the infinitely spectacular Darwin Bench and do a high-elevation lake-to-lake hop around the Glacier Divide. We’d done this route counterclockwise about a dozen years ago, and we knew that this was not going to be a huge comedown from Ionian Basin. Nevertheless, there were a few hiccups.
My wife and I hit the Lamarck trail around 9am on June 18th and were loaded with 12 days worth of food, so we were not breaking any speed records. The temps were great, bugs almost nonexistent and traffic very low. We camped shy of the col and found Darwin Canyon to be so beguiling the next day that we paused there to lighten our load and enjoy the scenery which we’d always jammed past on earlier trips. Once one transitions from Darwin Canyon to Darwin Bench, the distant views open up and it’s hard not to go slack jawed in appreciation. We eventually connected with the JMT/PCT pipeline and worked our way toward Wanda Pass. In contrast to the modest snow deposits of the first couple days, the further south we got the more snow we hit. The word from one group of PCTers was that Muir Pass was by far the snowiest and most challenging of all the big Sierra passes . Nevertheless, the flux of intrepid through hikers had carved a decent path and as long as the surface had seen a bit of sun, it was fine. Since we were aiming to use Wanda Pass as our entry point for Ionian Basin, we were looking for campsites once we passed Sapphire Lake. Good luck there. Wanda Lake was still frozen and very few dry spots existed up on the Wanda plateau. We backtracked and finally found a hiding place behind a boulder closer to Sapphire. We launched the next morning as a barrage of through hikers were descending from Muir Pass. There were occasional stretches of gravel and exposed rock, but mostly we were sliding on sun cups. Their dimensions grew the further we ascended. By noon it was clear that Wanda was winning the battle. She did not want company. Plus, we’d crashed repeatedly on the sun cups and were feeling broken and battered. Call it a technical knockout. The bright idea of reversing the circuit (namely, heading for Davis and Martha Lakes before tackling Ionian Basin) caught on temporarily until a scouting trip revealed whiteout in the Davis basin. We were not keen to snow camp. Chastened, we decided to retreat to Darwin Bench and plan a loop around the Glacier Divide.
- Darwin Canyon
- Hermit & Goddard from Darwin Bench
- Evolution Lake from Darwin Bench
- Mt. Huxley above Sapphire Lake
- Wanda Pass in the distance (snow-covered saddle)
- Hermit & McGee Peaks from Darwin Bench
- Alpenglow above Evolution Valley
- Emerald Peak and Gathering storm
- Lake 11,236
- crossing snow above lake 11,236
- Climb out of Lake 11,236
It took the sun a long time to hit us in the canyon holding 11,236, but on our prior trip through this area, we had made decent time between Lake 10907 and Lake 11236, so we were not too concerned. The wild card is that the smoke level (which had not been bad the day before) got progressively worse as we navigated toward 10907. Views as we rounded the Glacier Divide’s western nose were almost completely obscured. Yes, we were missing everything from Seven Gables and Gemini Peaks to Mt. Senger and Turret Peak. The water rushing out of Spearpoint Lake was a barely visible sluice. Still, we managed to find a comfortable campsite at 10907 and enjoyed the smoke-enhanced alpenglow.
- Plateau at west end of Glacier Divide
I had previewed the traverse from 10907 to Ramona the first time we did this loop, so I thought I had a good idea what we were about to tackle. In a nutshell, it was much harder than I remembered. Yes, the day’s smoke did not help, so there was only about 2 hours of direct sunlight by the time we got to Ramona. From there, it’s a hop and sharp descent to the Honeymoon Lakes followed by a nominally maintained trail. We were tickled to see a couple huge logs stretching across the angry waters of Piute Creek. Turns out, it was an angry log that caused the next mishap. I was tooling across the dual-log path when one of the logs snapped and dropped me into chest-deep water. Fortunately, it was the upstream log that broke and I managed to grab the downstream one. My wife was two steps behind me and managed to pull my pack out of the raging torrent while I scuttled back onto the log: soaked, chagrined and a bit bloodied (better than drowned!). We eventually found a barely tenable spot to erect our tent and shared our last night in the mountains with gazillions of skeeters.
The last morning was surprisingly clear, so the smoke plume was not an issue as we hiked out. Obviously, we found out that two big fires had been burning east of Fresno and we were the “beneficiaries” of that largesse. But really, June is TOO early for wildfires! Or is it?????
