Day Zero: We drove up to the trailhead around dusk. Can confirm, to those curious, that the road is a pain. My stock Subaru made it, but I don't know that I would have done it in anything less. There were maybe a half dozen cars at the trailhead and we slept for a few hours on the ground.
Day One: We started hiking around 4:30 and had gained some decent altitude by the time the sun came up. The heat never got too bad. The pass is big, obviously, but I didn't think climbing it was too bad. It's very direct, attractive in many parts, and the climb passes quickly. We made it to the top by noon and had lunch. We headed toward Bench Lake and some light rain started up. We made it to Bench and set up camp at an obvious spot with the classic view. The rain cleared eventually and we got beautiful views, marred only by an enormous population of very large, very curious, and very dumb ants who insisted on climbing all over us. Particularly annoying given that we both brought only tarps, no tents. Was still a great night, and Bench Lake is as beautiful as promised. We were surprised to only see one or two other group around the lake.
Lower portion of Taboose Pass
Toward Bench
Day Two: We decided to drop directly to the South Fork from Bench, which we accomplished by heading west before going northwest to descend a point a bit further down the canyon from Cartridge Pass. Once we reached the South Fork we turned upstream, found a place to cross, and eventually found ourselves at the meadow where the Cartridge Pass "trail" is purported to start. We couldn't find the trail and decided to just head off in the direction that we thought was right. We then looked down and realized we were actually on the trail, which was a nice surprise. The trail came and went as we climbed. The climb was harder than I had expected; it's a big climb with a steep beginning and a rocky end. In any event it was fun and we got over Cartridge and into Lakes Basin in the early afternoon. We took our time meandering through the middle of the basin and decided to camp on a ridge overlooking the large-ish lake at the bottom of Dumbbell Basin. The view from the ridge was stunning and Lakes Basin was as bucolic as advertised.
Descending to the South Fork, looking toward Cartridge
South Fork
Toward Cartridge
Lakes Basin
Day Three: We headed toward Dumbbell Pass and were on top of it quickly. The far side of the pass started out with a mixture of rocks and icy early morning snow. We stayed primarily on the rocks until we neared the top of the steep part. We moved across the face of the ridge to our left and quickly found an easy chute to descend to the lakeshore. We headed down Dumbbell Basin toward the foot of Bear Pass. Once there, we decided to climb a steep rock/sand slope just east of the typical start of the climb, with the aim of eventually connecting up with the main drainage further up. We ended up high on the east wall of the pass. Each time we looked for a route back into the main drainage, we either found cliffs, or a big descend followed by a snow-covered pass. So we kept working our way forward high up on the wall, until we popped out almost directly at the top of the pass. By this time clouds were building, so we hurried down the far side, which was a snow-filled chute that we slid down quickly. Our goal was to camp at the outlet of Lake 10,565, which looked as if it should have beautiful views to the west. We reached the shore of the lake about halfway to the outlet and started a difficult effort to move along the shoreline. After a bunch of detours to avoid cliffs and the like, we finally found ourselves at the outlet and got blasted by a thunderstorm. After that blew over, we had a chance to hang out at the lake and climb up a nearby ridge which provided the amazing western views we had hoped for.
Looking back at Lakes
A Dumbbell Lake
Looking back down the start of Bear Pass
10565 region
Ridge view (sunset behind the Black Divide I think)
Day Four: We got up early and headed over to check out Adventurer Pass, just a short trip from camp. We returned, packed up, and headed toward Observation Peak Pass. This one was straightforward; getting around the lake to start the climb was probably as hard as the climb itself. We dropped to the spot closest to the base of Cataract Creek Pass that we could find, and then started uphill. The chute on the Amphitheatre side of the pass was still full of snow. We dropped our packs and headed up Observation Peak. We then descended the pass via rocks a bit to the north of the primary (but snowy) chute. I recalled that I should not head directly to Amphitheatre Lake but should instead stay high before descending to the outlet. So that is what we did and it was a pain. The skies opened up once we made it to the bottom, so we set up camp near the bottom of the basin, waited it out for nearly four hours, and then enjoyed the beautiful setting.
Partway down Observation Peak Pass
Observation Peak
Cataract Creek Pass
Down Cataract Creek
Day Five: We headed up Amphitheatre Basin, which is lovely. We then started up the boulder pile beneath Upper Basin Crossing, which I thought was surprisingly fun. The boulders are good-sized and mostly solid, and they are just steep enough to make it a fun scramble. We then took the ledge described by cgundersen and referenced in Harlen's trip report. It was great fun. Going down this ledge might have been a bit scarier, but would also have been doable. We dropped into and across Upper Basin, thinking that we'd camp at some of the northeastern lakes. We were planning to hike out tomorrow, and to tag Split either this afternoon or the next morning. When we reached the lakes, we saw that Split wasn't going to happen that day (too much weather), and we didn't really like the lakes as campsites. So we had lunch and decided to just see if we could hike all the way out Taboose that afternoon. We headed downbasin and connected with the JMT around where it enters the trees. The JMT was a godsend and we were able to rip off miles. We made it to the top of Taboose at 4 and stumbled out to our car around 7:45. Inputting my best recollection of our route into Caltopo tells me that this was about a 19 mile day with something like +3700/-8700. This is probably as strenuous a hike as I've ever done.
Amphitheatre wall
Upper Amphitheatre Basin
UBC ledge
Impressions:
I had such a wonderful time. Every single area we saw was stunning and worthy of more time to explore. At the same time, I didn't feel like we shortchanged ourselves by rushing through: We took meandering and varied lines through every basin, generally checking out most of the lakes and sights in each. But this was characterized by the sheer number of passes we went over, and the total beauty of every area in between those passes.
We got to go over a good number of passes. I thought that Cataract Creek and Bear were the hardest, but I may be biased because they both came at the end of tiring days and we took unconventional routes on both. Dumbbell was easier than I expected; Cartridge was harder. UBC was super fun and probably my favorite pass of the trip (I think I'd like it less if crossing in the other direction). Observation Peak Pass was easy. So was Adventurer, but we only did the easy side.
Lakes Basin was probably my favorite of the group that we saw. It's a ridged, staircase-style basin with big beautiful views from nearly anywhere. Dumbbell was beautiful but not as much so; I did love going lower in the basin when the creek gets narrower and you find flower gardens everywhere. The 10565 area was reminiscent of the Ionian Basin, but smaller, with more slabs and less medium talus, and with slightly more trees. In other words it has a lot of what makes Ionian great while toning down a lot of what makes Ionian awful. And the view to the west from beyond the lake was the stunner of the trip.
We saw lots of flowers. Some gardens were past prime, but others were still at peak. The Columbine in the 10565 area was especially beautiful. The Taboose Pass trail was not perfectly maintained but was overall fine -- easy to follow and gets you where you're going. The Cartridge Pass trail isn't consistent and is starting to get washed out in places. It is nevertheless quite helpful in a few places; especially in getting you to the drainage of the big lake partway up the pass, and then in descending the steep far side.
We saw a few people in the trailed areas. We saw only one other group while off-trail: Three guys who were literally doing nearly the same loop as us. We heard them in Lakes, saw them cross Dumbbell, caught up to them and spoke briefly at the base of Bear Pass, saw then cross Observation Peak Pass, caught up to them at Cataract Creek, and then watched them cross Upper Basin Crossing. They seemed like nice guys and were keeping a pretty impressive pace. If you're out there, hope you had a great trip.
That's all I've got! Definitely a worthwhile destination.
