My brother Will and friend Jim invited me along on a late season trip from Mosquito Flats (Rock Creek) over Mono Pass to 4th Recess. I'd never been over Mono Pass and definitely wanted to squeeze in a late season trip before the snow really covered things up. We watched the weather and saw that storms would bracket the upcoming weekend if we could tolerate a little wind. We decided to give it a go.
The hike out of Little Lakes Valley is quite pretty and the breeze was light.
- Little Lakes Valley
Mono Pass is around 12,000' so there's little vegetation. The hike up from the trail head was fairly even. It was very breezy at the summit but not so bad that we couldn't stop for a bit.
- Mono Pass
We stopped at Trail Lakes on the way down from Mono Pass and you could see the wind in the clouds. I knew it was going to be a windy night. The picture doesn't show it, but there was a rainbow in the wispy clouds.
- Pinnacle Above Trail Lakes
A bit further down from Trail Lakes you cross Golden Creek and head down the Mono Creek drainage.
- Golden Creek
After leaving the trail down the Mono Creek drainage, you hike into the "4th Recess". There's a large lake with campsites on the east and west sides. It's quite a beautiful lake with the backdrop of cliffs. We chose a large campsite on east side that was decently shaded from the wind. We had the recess, and as far as we could tell the entire Mono Creek drainage to ourselves.
- 4th Recess
It was a windy night, but our campsite sheltered us from the worst of it. You could hear the gusts in the trees growing as the night went on but the temp didn't drop below the low 30's. We stayed warm in our tents and sleeping bags until we had to get up in the morning.
Reversing our path of the day before I captured some pictures in the morning light. The view down the Mono Drainage was amazing.
- Looking Down Mono Creek Drainage Towards Quail Meadow
And the view towards Pioneer Basin will probably encourage me to come back and explore this area more in the future.
- View Toward Pioneer Basin
Climbing back up towards Trail Lakes I took this picture of the outflow looking north-east.
- Trail Lakes Outflow
As I climbed back towards Mono Pass the wind steadily grew. It was so strong that my pack was acting like a sail. I needed to angle myself to face into the wind and actually lean forward. It was cold too. At the pass Summit Lake had added an appreciable amount of ice and it was collected where the wind could blow it.
- Frozen Summit Lake
My brother and Jim exited a couple hours after me. My brother had brought his fishing gear and felt obliged to toss in. He didn't mention any bites after they returned
It snowed again last weekend so now I'm going to wait till it accumulates enough to snowshoe and then head out again. I can't wait.
