High Sierra Topix

Britt and I had planned to fish Humphrey’s Basin and French Canyon with the pups from 7/19-7/22. A few days before the trip my dog got bit at the dog park and found himself in a cone—unsuitable for trail travel, so he stayed home. So Britt, Animal, and I hit the trail early on the 19th. We knew that there was a reasonable change of t-storms (between 20%-40% each day, and not much to worry about according to the ranger who issued our permit). I drove down to Bishop from the Bay Area and stayed at Britt’s place. There was moderate smoke from the fires but Britt said that she had been up Bishop Creek the last few days and it was clear higher up. Sure enough, the smoke faded away as we drove up to North Lake the following morning and we had clear blue skies as we got on the trail. As we hiked up the pass, dark clouds gathered. Around 11:30am, the sky opened up and rain quickly turned to hail. We kept trudging up the pass, and a hundred feet or so below the top, we heard BIG thunder. An older guy coming up just behind us said, “Well don’t stop now!!!” By the time we got to the top, the hail was sizeable and coming down hard but we were already so close to our destination, we decided to keep going—although we could see lightning strikes in the distance, they didn’t seem too close to where we were. We took the side trail to Muriel Lake and passed a few groups of tents. After 20 min of campsite recon, we finally found a spot and—miraculously—the hail let up for 15 minutes so we could pitch our tent. No more than 10 minutes after we got it up, the hail started up again and we hunkered down for the next few hours. The sky cleared around 5:30 pm and we walked around the lake fishing and playing “sunshowers or fish rises” until dark. The night sky was perfectly clear—no rain or any sign of the afternoon’s storm.
Second verse, same as the first. Mostly.
On Day 2, we woke up to clear blue skies but were wary of more storms. Instead of hiking up to Goethe and Lost Lakes to fish, we opted to hike straight to our camping destination so we could get our tent up in case of stormy weather. By 10 am there were wispy clouds in the air. By 11 am there were thunderheads. By 12 pm, we had our tent pitched at upper Desolation Lake and were inside, waiting out another hailstorm. The sky blackened and we could see flashes from lightning from the inside of our tent, quickly followed by deafening thunder that seemed to shake the ground. At least two of the lightning and thunder strikes were close enough in succession to make us look at each other and wonder what it would be like to be blown up by lightning inside of our tent. In the meantime, we caught up on each other’s lives and drank the remaining 5 of the 6 beers we had packed in. Whenever it seemed like the lightning and harder rain/hail let up, we’d sneak outside for some of the more gorgeous views of the trip. Around dinner time, the storm cleared and we fished the lake without much luck, although I did catch a nice golden.

Day three we once again woke to clear blue skies but we had started to catch on to the weather pattern and decided not to head over Puppet Pass to fish French Canyon as we had planned. Instead we decided to take advantage of the morning calm and hiked over to fish Mesa and Tomahawk—both gorgeous lakes. Even though we had planned on staying out for an additional night, we didn’t feel like spending another 5-6 hours hunkered down in the tent during the afternoon’s storm that was sure to come. So, after a leisurely lunch and fishing at Tomahawk, and seeing the clouds starting to gather, we decided to hike out around 3:30 pm. The rain had held off longer than it had the previous two days, but it started up again as we came down the hill back towards the trail. By the time we reached Piute Pass, I decided that I didn’t at all mind hiking in the rain when there wasn’t lightning. The hike down from the pass to the trailhead seemed to take forever, maybe because it was rain/hailing, and maybe because the trail was completely flooded and so we had to do a lot of extra hopping around to make any progress without walking through a foot of water. We gave up on avoiding the trail-river about two miles down and ended up just sloshing through it the rest of the way. We saw hikers hunkered down in tents just below the pass (with a lawn chair set out in front!) and another group lower down—all of whom were holding full-sized white umbrellas to keep dry. The last group we saw had just hiked up that afternoon, and one of them had not brought a sleeping bag or pad, or pants, for that matter. I guess people have different ideas of what to bring and what not to bring into the backcountry… None of the people we passed had mentioned to us that the trail was completely washed out down below. As we hiked down we came across several huge mud/rock slides—some we could easily cross and continue on down the trail while others had completely washed out the whole area. We ended up bushwhacking for a ways until we were able to rediscover the trail. We finally cruised into the North Lake Pack Station around 7:30 pm, found the road to North Lake and Highway 168 intact (although there had been a slide between the North Lake turnoff and Sabrina) and headed straight to the brewery.

On the upside, we got into some beautiful country and got to experience mountain storms like I’ve never been in before in ten years of backpacking. We got out safe and sound, and just in time, as the storms continued and the 168 slid the next morning, stranding a bunch of campers and hikers at North Lake. We also didn’t get struck by lightning, always a plus. On the downside, I guess there was no downside. Short and sweet. We’ll try our original planned route again some other time!

Nice report! I'm going end of June next year with Simba (yellow lab.) Should be a kick in the pants, especially puppet pass.

Thanks for the great report and photos! I don't envy the weather you received, but that is one amazing rainbow shot and I suppose the most interesting views always come before/after a Sierra storm. Thanks for sharing!

Beautiful pictures! thanks for the report.

Quite the rainbow shots! And even a leprechaun who temporarily disguised himself as a marmot!

Thank you for the trip report and the beautiful photos.
Glad that everything turned out well in spite of the weather.
If it is going to rain, i prefer afternoons to mornings by, say, 1000 to 1 or so. Just sayin'.

Great TR!! Glad you guys had fun and got out safe! I guess I need to do research on proper lightning safety in tents while in the backcountry.

The red wildflowers by the lake with the lush greenery make for an excellent photograph. It's amazing how inclement weather is oftentimes the best weather for great pictures.

Thanks for the report. I was in the same area at the same time as you — those were some storms, huh? Glad you escaped before the slide closed the road. That really is a nice double rainbow you captured. There's an old but very good Scientific American article from 1977 about rainbows that gives some history and detailed explanations of their features if you're interested. Just sayin'...