R09 TR: Into the Crystal Range, Desolation Wilderness, 9/8-9/11 2016

[cmon4day]

Second BP trip of the year into Desolation Wilderness. This time from the west. Started at the Twin TH at Wright lake and headed up to Twin Lakes.

Crossing the outlet of Lower Twin

We found a nice campsite at the upper Twin Lake

View From Our Campsite

Evening at Upper Twin

The next day we headed out XC up and over the ridge into the Tyler /Gertrude drainage on our way to Rockbound Pass

Tyler Lake

Karl at Rockbound Pass

Once over Rockbound we headed over to Doris Lake for the night.

Doris Lake in the Morning

Our Campsite at Doris

From Doris we headed north past Schmidell up to Leland Pass where we stopped for lunch. From there we went XC again up and over between Silver and Red Peaks down to Lake #3.

Heading up to Leland Pass

Lunch Break overlooking Leland Lakes

XC over to Lake #3

Lake #3 showing the saddle we crossed

After a long break at Lake #3 we headed down to Lawrence Lake for our last night. We had a nice camp on the eastern side of Lawrence and went for a refreshing swim. The next morning we headed out back to the TH and back home.

Beautiful Meadow on way out

[FeetFirst]

Cool route. Thanks for sharing your report & pictures.

When I crossed the outlet at lower Twin lake that log was mostly underwater. I'm not sure if it was just knocked off of its perch or if the water was higher.

[balzaccom]

Nice report!

[windknot]

Thanks for the report! That's a neat route connecting several areas that I've visited separately but not together.

[cmon4day]

Feet First and Windknot,

Yes, it was a fun route. It was a good mix of challenging XC and trail. Fishing was good by the way at both Upper Twin and Doris. Lawrence appears to have been hammered pretty hard since the reopening of the Barrett Lake OHV trail.

Here is a copy of our route: