Andrew, Chris, Adan and I entered via the Silver Lake TH on Thursday, 03/19 and spent the next four days snowshoeing a partial loop in the area. The weather was mostly clear and sunny during the day and typically cloudy overnight. A storm brought some snow in the afternoon on Sunday (fortunately after we made it back to the trailhead).
There was no snow on the trail up to Agnew Lake but the switchbacks on the north facing slope were covered with well packed Sierra cement (and a few areas of ice). We took a cross country route past Clark Lakes and found a nice overlook near Agnew Pass with great views of the Ritter Range.
We camped near Agnew Pass the first night and headed out toward 1,000 Island Lake the second day. The trails were snow covered but we were able to follow the JMT corridor (with the help of map, compass and GPS) to the Shadow Creek Jct. From there we followed the Shadow Creek drainage to Ediza Lake for the night. Everything takes longer in the snow and it was a long strenuous day with a few 300-450 foot snow climbs along the way.
The third day we backtracked down the Shadow Creek trail and took it all the way down to the Middle Fork San Joaquin. The trails were mostly clear once past the outlet of Shadow Lake.
We had mainly summer conditions/temps in the canyon until we reached the far north end. Snowshoes were off as soon as we reached the south facing trail climb back up to Agnew Pass. We camped near one of the Clark Lakes that night.
The final day we took a shortcut down the drainage of Clark Lakes to the south shore of Gem Lake. The lake was melting from the edges and although 2/3rds was still totally frozen most of the group stayed off the ice. Once we all met back at the footbridge at the inlet of Gem Lake we followed mostly all dry trail on the way back to Silver Lake.
Photos from the trip in a flickr album:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsk9CT4FS
Some photos:
- north chute above agnew lake
- 1427217783_122197.jpg (88.93 KiB) Viewed 335 times
- camp near agnew pass
- rolling terrain near the outlet of 1,000 island lake
- 1427226742_122223.jpg (104.73 KiB) Viewed 335 times
- 1,000 island lake bridge
- garnet lake bridge
- frozen ediza lake
- ediza lake outlet melting
- frozen shadow lake
- chute to gem lake
- IMG_2600.JPG (104.74 KiB) Viewed 335 times
- storm clouds covering minarets, banner & ritter on sunday
