High Sierra Topix

Hoping in two weeks to put together an on-trail loop from Glacier Point connecting the trail along Illilouette Creek with either the high or the low trail paralleling the Merced River. In a normal year, Red Peak Pass would be the natural connection. This is not a normal year, and the YNP website right now is discouraging travel over Red Peak Pass. There's a long way round through the woods and over Merced Pass and then Fernandes and Post Peak Passes, which are all lower elevation than Red Creek Pass. As of the last unoccluded Hi-Res image you can see on CalTopo, Fernandes and Post Peak were both retaining snow, but over a smaller area than Red Peak Pass.

Has anybody been any of these places recently who can report on conditions (snow/navigation/downed trees/creek crossings)? My skillset and risk-aversion are such that both the travel and the navigation would need to be fairly straightforward for me to attempt to close the loop. Fortunately, I'd be delighted with a trip that consisted in going as far as felt sensible along one leg, then retreating and doing the same for the other leg!

There was snow on Red Peak Pass end of September in 2011, a similar high snow year. The west side of the pass has a very steep upper section. Giantbrookie just put in a trip report and there was solid snow on the east side of the pass. You would need snow climbing skills and equipment to safely go over the pass. I would take the warning of the Park Service seriously. Giantbrookie and his daughter detoured the pass. You need to read his report.

Post Peak Pass is not nearly as steep. I do not recall anything hard about it. But at 10800 feet it also will probably still have snow.

I have never been over Fernandes. It skirts an east facing ridge at 10,200.

Thanks! It was Giantbrookie's report -- specifically the absences of (i) footprints in the snow burying the Red Peak Pass trail, and (ii) delight with the ontrail travel in regions near ones I'd go through if I tried to go the long way round -- that motivated me to try to find out more about conditions! Your descriptions and comparisons of Red Peak and Post Peak passes help.

I talked this morning to a YNP ranger just back from a 4 day patrol that went out along Illilouette creek, crossed Red Peak Pass and returned along the lower trail paralleling the Merced. In case hearsay evidence is allowed on this forum, here's what he told me: like Giantbrookie and Dawn, he didn't encounter anyone else's footprints when he went up and over the pass. On the steeper Illilouette side, the switchbacks near the top are partially snow covered. He thought it wasn't a big deal to do scree scrambles around the snowy bits, and reports that a party following him just stomped across in microspikes. To his mind, a bigger deal is a stretch of northfacing slope on the Merced side, 400-600 meters in length and steep enough that he "had to use crampons to descend." He'd advise anyone tackling this to bring an ice axe and NOT TO GLISSADE, especially early in the day. He also said that he found all the stream crossings along the Merced lower trail manageable, none more than knee deep, none torrential. Finally, of course, mosquitos!