High Sierra Topix

For those following this thread, thought it would be useful to know the following:

Our party crossed Bubbs Creek below East Creek on July 27 by wading up the braids in the lower meadows, a quarter to half mile below the official crossing. Every other place (including official crossing) looked insanely dangerous. In the route I walked, water was never above the top of the knee. However, there was a good current and I spent a long time kind of hiking up the creek. Then there is a pretty time-consuming bushwhack to get back to the East Lake trail on the south side of Bubbs.

There is also a log that crosses the creek below the lower meadows. Some of us walked across without packs, but we decided against this crossing because while the chances of a fall were relatively low, the consequences would have been catastrophic (probably death with the amount of water there last week).

Thus, although we crossed, it makes sense that the rangers said they "did not recommend" crossing Bubbs.

Longley Pass was mostly blocked on July 28 by a massive overhanging cornice -- looked like 20 feet of snow. There was snow debris downslope that suggested it was breaking off until relatively recently. Almost worse than the cornice was the ~100 feet of surprisingly icy high-angle snow directly below it. There were a few inches of slush undergirded by consolidated ice that was hard to penetrate with an axe. Looking at it from a distance, I thought I would be able to kick steps or crampon up this and go around the cornice, but although I had ice axe and crampons, I got spooked halfway up the snow and downclimbed. I personally wouldn't attempt that again without a belay. Our party of four crossed the pass via the class 3 rock scramble just north of the usual route.

bernal2raro wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:28 pm
Our party crossed Bubbs Creek below East Creek on July 27 by wading up the braids in the lower meadows, a quarter to half mile below the official crossing. Every other place (including official crossing) looked insanely dangerous. In the route I walked, water was never above the top of the knee. However, there was a good current and I spent a long time kind of hiking up the creek. Then there is a pretty time-consuming bushwhack to get back to the East Lake trail on the south side of Bubbs.

Yes, that is correct. I've had to do that lower meadow stream crossing a couple of times over the last ten years. I was in water up to my crotch.

One time I watched a horse and rider try to cross at the standard spot, and the rushing water was almost up to the belly of the horse. Naturally the horse had enough sense not to do it, despite what the rider wanted.

Yesterday I crossed it about 100 yards downstream of the official crossing, at a limbless standing pine trunk. I'm 6' tall and the water was almost up to my hips, and moving pretty swiftly.

A belated thank you for the great photo! I did go out of Onion Valley last summer, but regretted that decision. Due to the volume of snow on some cross-country passes, I never made it into the solitude of Gardiner Basin, so ended up roaming around the Rae Lakes/Sixty Lakes Basin area. Had a miserable experience at Charlotte Lake where some disrespectful campers were walking around and shouting at around 11:00 PM at night. Note to self - cross Charlotte Lake off of any future plans.
I'm going to try to get up into the Sphinx Lake area this coming August and making a loop that would involve crossing Bubbs Creek at East Creek. We'll see how it goes, but I have some "bailout" plans if this winter produces a lot of snow.
Thanks again for the info!