Advice on proposed trip starting at Crabtree TH

[BillyBobBurro]

There was a fire in the Bourland area last fall and it was a bit trickier to follow the route down to WF cherry creek. My first trek in the area and it was easy to follow cairns and other's footsteps but last summer it required a bit more navigation effort.

Good to know! Didn't realize the Quarry fire did much to the forest between the trail head and the creek. That area was wasn't fun before. Perhaps another season of rafters trotting through will help re-establish some trail.

The Quarry fire really did not do too much redecorating in the area and seemed like it was a good fire. My first attempt (pre-fire) to bushwhack from Bourland Meadow Th to my chosen west fork crossing went really well following existing tracks. Post fire, we did not have the garmin, little time, it was hot and we ran out of water for the doggos. We stopped along the ridge where fire damage was very evident and and cairns and tracks were more challenging to locate. If the 'trail' was easier to follow or I was better prepared for the doggos needs we would of made it to WF.

[Schleppy]

...not having to set up camp each day is kind of nice. Suppose one assumes a 2 mph "normal" pace, any idea what the multiplier might be for Ros->Big? I'm sure it depends on line of sight and the level of micro route finding needed.

Last three miles from Ros if you're 2 mph on good trail?.....Casual, maybe three hours? Less if goal oriented, but who wants to rush the views? And if you're tired, well....

No shortage of options, all varying degrees of nice. What good's a plan if you can't break it? You're

[edgeagg]

True. I'm overthinking this. I hope to be at Ros by about 1 pm or thereabouts. Might loll about there for a bit and take a nap before proceeding on. Maybe it's just me but I find that early starts and a midday nap certainly refreshes me big time after lunch. But that is true for naps in general.

[balzaccom]

I don't ever assume a "normal" 2mp hiking speed when trying to follow cairns on a cross-country route.

And I will echo the comment that the scenery in those last miles before Big Lake is astonishing. Given that you live far away and might not be back soon, don't rush that section!

[edgeagg]

Yes, 2mph isn't likely feasible for off-trail. And as you said, why storm through it. We have several different bailouts anyway, Rosasco and Pingree. The route from Pingree to Big doesn't seem bad anyway. So I feel as prepared for the route as needed.

Now just need to get more miles under my belt :-).

[c9h13no3]

True. I'm overthinking this.

Yeah, my initial thought was "this dude uses Caltopo, is clearly a planner, has backpacked extensively, he/she will be fine".

I think the only thing you haven't considered is heat, since this area of the Sierra is a bit low & shadeless. And some side streams can dry up by August. But you know, wake up 30 minutes earlier and jump in a lake, you'll be fine.

[scottmiller]

Your route looks like the most direct way to Big Lake. I've taken that route, someone told me they call it the "Golden Staircase." We heard there was a good use trial up the steep part, but we couldn't find it, so up we went, having a good ol' scramble. Halfway up we found the trail and it was gravy from there on. So, take a few minutes at the bottom to see if there is a trail. They said there are large obvious cairns, but that was 15 years ago.
Once you get to Rososco, it's mostly levelish and easy to traverse around that whole awesome plateau. It's one of my favorite areas in Emigrant. Yellowhammer Camp is pretty great. I went from Yellowhammer to Five Acre, Leighton, Kole, and there is a wall going east-west somewhere around Five Acre that goes on forever. Just keep looking and there are ways over it.
Buck Lakes are nice, but I like Wire Lakes a little better. They are on a trail spur so fewer people. They are also pretty far apart, and might be too far from your route. Long Lake is similarly off the path, and you can get there easily cross-country from Deer Lake.

[edgeagg]

True. I'm overthinking this.

Yeah, my initial thought was "this dude uses Caltopo, is clearly a planner, has backpacked extensively, he/she will be fine".

I think the only thing you haven't considered is heat, since this area of the Sierra is a bit low & shadeless. And some side streams can dry up by August. But you know, wake up 30 minutes earlier and jump in a lake, you'll be fine.

Yes, I was looking at temps there. So we really want to make an early start. We are staying at Copperopolis, which is about 1.5 hours from the TH and reall would like to get started on the trail at 830 AM or so. But as I said, a short nap after lunch with an optional immersion should re-invogorate us. I am also one of those people who tends to overplan.

BTW, wrt to your .sig you might be aware of the related quote by Vilhjalmur Stefansson: "Adventure is a sign of incompetence" .....

Also in terms of Long Lake and Wire Lakes. So many choices!

[kpeter]

I think that the trail to Louse should be easy to navigate and we expect to make good time on it.

Yes, zero impedance before Louse. Can space cowboy all that.

We do plan to a number of Cascade backpacks before this though, and we generally cover between 16-20 miles per day if good trails on these trips with significant elevation gain. However these are not trips where routefinding is hard. We will have to see how the route finding between Rosasco and Big is to see if we should bail to Pingree if deciding to go on to get an idea of timings.

Good plan, though maybe decide to bail or not during drop from Ros, before committing to final push. The last 2 miles to big take more time than the distance suggests, but quickly becomes just as long to track back for Ping. Also nice to not be hurried through the views towards the end.

Great trip!

I confess I've only ever been to Big Lake via Pingree, three times, and never the other way around. I always found it pretty easy.

Route finding from Rosasco to Pingree is fairly easy. The hardest part can be finding the trail out of Rosasco early season before the latest ducks are set up, since it passes through some forest duff and meadows that are overgrown. But you come to a downhill stretch that comes into a flat valley of granite where the intersection of use trails is located, and from there, just head straight east. I never even tried to follow any "trail" in this part, since it is almost completely open and akin to walking on a sloped parking lot. You will probably see bits of an intermittent outlet stream coming down from Pingree, depending on the year and the season. You can follow that up too.

Alternatively, you can bypass Rosasco altogether by taking the use trail that takes off from from the Buck Meadows trail just east of the crossing. This trail is very faint in most places and can be hard to pick up--and longer--but it is much more level and was probably the main access route for horses once upon a time. This will take you to the same intersection in the flat granite, but from the NE rather than from the NW.

At Pingree the use trail goes along the North side, where the largest camp is located, and then down the east side, which is woodsier and where there are some smaller camps. If you continue down the east side you will come to an uphill section that takes you up the 50 feet or so to get to the top of the granite, and then you are looking down on Big Lake across that vast expanse. A million ways to pick your way down from that point.

[edgeagg]

Thanks @kpeter. BTW are "ducks" the same thing as cairns? And why are they called ducks? I googled but could not find any convincing explanation for the name

EDIT: I found some posts that indicated that "ducks" are supposedly directional, cairns are not. In the PNW we call everything a cairn.