Our plan was to see as much of Desolation as we could with 3 nights/4 days and a bad foot, and to get a little cross-country experience. As usual things didn't go exactly according to plan but we had a great time.
Map: https://caltopo.com/m/6DU1G32
Day 1, 7/23: Wrights Lake TH -> eastern end of Island Lake (5mi/1,600' gain with packs, 0.6mi/220' gain without packs, hot day)
We were on the tail end of a heat wave, so we tried to start as early as possible after the drive — it got up to 85 F as we walked, which was toastier than we'd hoped. The first day out was as usual a relief — a reminder to stop worrying about our place in the world and just live.
We started in on the only part of the route that was familiar to us, the Twin Lakes Trail, past alternating granite and forested stands into exposed granite slabs. Twin Lakes came into view quickly, with the Crystal Range behind it — stellar, clean granite everywhere.
After refilling water at Twin Lakes, we crossed its old stone dam and followed the patchy trail past pretty Boomerang Lake, and through a meadow and over some rocks to Island Lake.
We arrived at Island around noon, and saw the last people we'd see for 24 hours: a family finishing a dayhike. We walked cross-country around Island's north shore to set up camp at its east end, to make the trip over the pass to Clyde the next morning easier.
We'd originally intended to see if we could camp at Shangri-La but had forgotten to note exactly where it was or what it looked like, so instead found a campsite on a bench around 8220' next to a little creek.
We'd also planned to try summiting Mount Price and Agassiz that afternoon, but it was a little too hot and we were a little too late to make the adventure seem plausible. So we just wandered around in the direction of Twin Lakes, exploring some small waterfalls and tarns to the south of Island Lake.
Back at camp, we had instant mashed potatoes (me) and a Mountain House meal (partner) for dinner. Even though we were only at 8200', I felt the altitude a bit that evening (headache, tingly hands), but it passed quickly. As far as we could see, there was no one else around Island Lake that night.
Day 2, 7/24: Island Lake -> xc to Clyde Lake -> PCT past Lake Aloha and Heather Lake to Susie Lake (5mi/1,200' gain with packs, cool and cloudy)
After yesterday's heat, today was a welcome partly-cloudy. The light kept gilding some choice part of the landscape, then sweeping away. We made some coffee, ate breakfast, filtered water for the upcoming pass, and packed up camp.
We were planning to go over the ridge between Island and Clyde, where a notch looked promising. We were a little nervous because this was our first cross-country pass with packs. It turned out to be lots of fun and pretty unharrowing, though — class 2, all sturdy boulders on the Island side.
Coming down was harder. We'd originally intended to keep our elevation from the pass and traverse to the ridge directly down to Mosquito Pass, as recommended by wildhiker. But our morning Garmin weather forecast had showed high chance of thunderstorms, and there were potentially-ominous-looking clouds over the ridge, so we decided to play it safe and descend to Clyde first, rather than stay up on the ridge for an extra mile.
The rock on the pass down to Clyde Lake was smaller and looser than on the Island side, so we tried to find grassy/brushy patches where possible, but fell on our butts twice before getting down to the lake.
This was our first time seeing Clyde and it was gorgeous. Joining the use trail we ran into two women (the first people we'd seen since yesterday around noon), who seemed thrilled to see the lake.
We walked up Mosquito Pass from there, somewhat annoyed at how fast and easy it was to get up and over a trailed pass compared to the one we'd just gone over — hopefully we'll get better at xc soon!
Seeing Lake Aloha for the first time coming down from Mosquito Pass was impressive, and we saw some gorgeous campsites above the lake. We took our time walking along Lake Aloha's beautiful north shore, admiring the islands and the shallow water, and along the shore of Heather Lake. We tried to keep our eyes open to the flowers and the leaves and the creatures as the trail got busier, with varying success.
We'd intended to camp at Gilmore Lake today, but we saw only one party at Susie so decided to stop there, figuring that Gilmore would be more crowded (which we found to be true the next morning). We found a lovely campsite on a bench above Susie, lounged around and nursed our sore feet for a while, made dinner, and went to sleep.
Day 3, 7/25: Susie Lake -> PCT past Gilmore, over Dicks Pass, past Dicks Lake, Fontanillis Lake, and Upper/Middle Velma -> Rubicon trail through valley -> Rockbound to Lake Doris (13mi/3,000' gain with packs, windy day)
Our destination for the day was Lake Doris, starting from Susie Lake. But instead of heading back the way we came, we decided to make a counterclockwise loop: up to the Velmas, then over to hopefully see Lake Schmidell and Lake Lois.
We started by hiking up to Gilmore Lake, where we walked past four tents on our way to the southwest corner.
Then went up and over Dicks Pass — excellent pass! At the top of the pass, we saw a nice meadow with what looked like great camping, albeit probably dry much of the year. We considered but nixed the idea of walking up Dicks Peak: too many miles left, and feet were already sore.
We went down past Dicks Lake to multihued Fontanillis Lake, where we stopped for water, lunch, and some staring at the lake. Then went past Upper and Middle Velma Lake to head over to Camper Flat. The trail got quiet here, compared to the busyness of the PCT.
We had wanted to head from Camper Flat to Lake Schmidell to see Schmidell and Lois on the way to camp, but we were dissuaded by our sore feet and a couple people we passed who said the trail there was impossible to follow.
Instead, we took the Rubicon Trail to China Flat — a choice we immediately regretted, as we ran into tons of bugs and mud. We hadn't noticed any mosquitoes before this, but immediately got 13 bites in 5 minutes, despite permethrin-treated clothing. The trail did go fast though.
By the time we got up to Doris, the winds were pretty extreme. We considered descending (bugs) or camping on the more-protected north shore (looked crowded), but instead pitched our tent at a fairly exposed but developed campsite, and spent an hour trying to engineer some wind protection for our tent.
Despite our shortcut through the Rubicon, this had been a long day for our bad feet, so we made and ate dinner quickly and went to bed.
we were careful to return every rock to its original spot after we left. (And thank you for your service!)
