High Sierra Topix

PART 1.

I’ve been yearning to get up into the “big mountains” for months but have been turned back twice, in late April and late May. So when I saw the heat-wave forecast a week ago I knew I had to scramble and get in there. The creeks would likely rage more. The snow turn to slush by early morning. And surely the mysterious lack of mosquitoes would revert to black clouds making up for lost time.
After a bit of pondering I decided to try for Lamarck Col and a look over into Evolution Valley. This was a big ask but the route had only one real creek to worry about and I always shoot way higher at home than I’m capable of once out in reality. I booked a permit and was off Monday morning.

The first interesting thing was seeing how low the S. Fork of the American River was along Hwy. 50 – at about half the flow it was at a month ago. Next up was the Walker River along Hwy 395. It was not as low and maybe only down about 10% from April and May, though all the smaller creeks (and the road in general) had dried out noticeably… Mmmmmmmm?!

The North Lake road was still closed at the main Sabrina junction so I parked there at the bridge and hiked up to the ‘closed’ North Lake Campground. The top section of road had some big puddles that would turn to mud holes with traffic so no doubt it will remain closed for another week or so.
The campground was a hive of PCT hikers doing the Piute Pass trail to avoid the trashed bridge. The big news for me though was NO MOSQUITOES still, and the creek looked very mild compared to what I expected.

The PCT’ers had mostly all gone by dawn and I set off at 7:00 am for the Lamarck Lakes trail under blue cloudless skies.

NOTE – For some reason downloading to HS Topix makes photos blurry. To see sharper photos click on the image once. To magnify even more click again. Click the ‘back’ arrow to return to the text.

Pic. 1. On the trail Another pleasant surprise was the lack of trashed trees down. Just one was about it! Nothing like the mess and devastation at Pine Creek trailhead.
I’ve already given snow elevations in the “Conditions Reports” but will recap here. Really not much snow until patches started around 10,000 ft. in the forest. Rapidly increased though with big areas and beginnings of suncups around 10,600 ft. Lower Lamarck Lake was still partially frozen and Lamarck Creek was flowing fairly strongly. Crossable for sure but lots of round slippery boulders so not great barefoot. I took a pass on it, as there was a snow-ice wall not much further along in the narrow cleft between the lower and upper lakes.

Pic. 2. Lower Lamarck Lake The main reason I did not continue though was I was a rather pooped. First day. First real hike. Plus A.A. - altitude and age! And the realization that going up to almost 13,000 ft. at Lamarck Col was way more than I could achieve at the get go. Added to that was it was only 8:30 am and I had assumed it would take many more hours to get to here. This would mean sitting around the more confined area of the Lamarcks for the whole day, so I regrouped and decided to go up Piute Pass instead. There seemed to be much more room to explore there.

On the way back down I ran into a lady ranger and her assistant hiking up to go over the Col and open up the McClure Ranger Station! So she hoped anyway. We all pondered what the suncups might be like in those huge basins up there. She would find out as had a determined mien about her.

I was back at the North Lake campground by 9:45 am and re-routed up the Piute Pass trail, marveling at the mild flow in the N. Fork Bishop Creek. Hardly any sense of torrent in it with easy low log crossings.
The snow patches started about 9,800 ft. with a lot more showing up around 10,250 ft. In the more open sections there were the start of suncups and snow channels. The trail began to disappear completely under snow and I lost it well before the wall before Loch Leven. My phone GPS was rather pathetic whenever I really needed it (worked fine when I did not!) so ran into that obstacle and had to follow a deer trail clambering through snow, brush and rocks to get around the thing. Which was great, because Loch Leven was beautiful.

Pic. 3 Hitting a wall By now I had met a total of 8 PCT hikers going down the trail! They were bailing on the route as had had enough of snow, suncups, creeks, wet feet, 2:00 am wake-ups, continuous no trail navigation, and all of it. Having already done Forester, Glen, Pinchot, Mather, and Bishop Passes that was saying a lot. A couple had even got as far as Selden Pass before calling it quits on the Sierras for now. With that sobering news and seeing as I had done a total of about 2,750 ft. of elevation gain so far that day I decided to camp at Loch Leven for the night and take it easy.

Pic. 4. Loch Leven Pic. 5. Campsite Pic. 6. Campsite view Long night. No sleep to speak of. Warm temperatures with a low of around 35 degrees.
I decided to do a day-hike check of Piute Pass before committing to go full load into the Humphreys Basin, so packed what I needed in my much lighter pack and was about to take off though the snow when a group of 5 (6 in all) young PCT’ers showed up. That was fortuitous as they could navigate and all I had to do was follow their boot tracks.

Suncups and snow channels became the norm so I donned microspikes and they worked just great. There were intact snow bridges across small side creeks and even the main creek. At about 11,000 ft. there was a fairly impressive looking wall of snow just below the pass, but as usual once on the slope was not too bad at all.

Pic. 7. Still snow bridges Pic. 8. Just below Piute Pass Pic. 9. Just below Piute Pass For those who want a little better feel for what this was like and the amount of snow still around, here is a YouTube video link at this point just below the pass. Please excuse the wind noise and lack of sharpness. In the original High Definition it is a lot better:

https://youtu.be/92oggycKBvk

Once over the top with huge views into Humphreys Basin it was breathtaking! Just gorgeous…Big. Majestic. Full on Sierras…Finally.

PART 2 to follow below...

PART 2.

Then passed almost an hour of talking with the PCT group who were a real international mix. Two from the Czech Republic. One from Australia. One from Sweden. One from Germany. And one from USA. They were truly an inspiration. I have the greatest respect for their adventurous spirit and the hardships they have endured this year in particular. Yet still so upbeat and positive! The photo shows it - though the second Czech had not arrived yet.

Pic. 10 Great PCT group – Piute Pass Pic. 11 This place is my home The Humphreys Basin has a well-deserved reputation for suncups! It was a sea of them stretching out as far as one could see, into which the intrepid PCT’ers plunged at quite a clip.

Pic. 12 Humphreys Basin Pic. 13 A sea of suncups I explored a bit and was about to return to camp when I saw 3 hikers coming southbound from the Basin. They had hiked the JMT from Tuolumne Meadows and were just exhausted! They talked of endless creeks, soaked feet, suncups, slush…the whole nine yards. Bishop was paradise to be gained, hopefully that day, but I doubted it as the clouds were building up rapidly.
We all set off downhill with me hoping to make my tent at Loch Leven before the weather broke. With slushy snow it was a bit slower and it took a lot of balance to avoid falling. I don’t like trekking poles and I do wonder if I had an easier time of it than those using them. It looked harder to me and I was quite enjoying myself in comparison.

By the time I was at camp it was starting to drizzle, so the forecast for cloudless skies all week took a kick in the shins. By late afternoon it had turned to snow, the temperature dropped and a wind picked up. I got on my rain gear and rocked the tent pegs as being an idiot I had believed the forecast.

Another sleepless night with ice on the tent so I waited for the sun to dry it while I pondered what to do next.

Despite the stories I had been hearing I was quite enjoying the snow and was tempted to do more of it. However, my rebound/recharge rate is getting a lot slower as I get older and the lack of sleep was taking a toll. Another factor was the almost universal advice to not go off into deep snow conditions alone. Being a tad away from 73 there was no way I could keep up with a PCT group or tolerate those super early wake-ups. (Not that I would even be asleep by then!). Mmmmmmm…so no Humphreys Basin. Thus I decided to go down and day hike Bishop Pass instead and maybe McGee Creek the next day.

By the time my gear was dry and I reached my car it was early afternoon. The creek had not changed much since Monday so the warm days had not had an impact yet.

Pic. 14. Creek flow at Sabrina - N. Lake Road South Lake got delayed as I gave some backpackers a ride with the usual chatting and conditions catch-up. The lake was very low due to flood control I guess.

Pic. 15. South Lake It was almost 2:30 pm when I started up the Bishop Pass trail and hit snow patches immediately. There was a section of open trail for a while then more and more snow in the forest along that section. I completely lost the trail around 10,200 ft. despite the boot track some PCT’ers in the parking lot had just made. It was dissolving within 30 minutes!
It was really warm so the snow was getting pretty slushy and I decided to call it a day. My energy was draining fast and I needed some food. A burger in 90 degrees Bishop might perk up my energy - well so I thought. It did not.

I realized that sleep deprivation was taking its toll so headed north on 395 to check McGee Creek trailhead and see what the creek was like. It was a non issue. Just a well flowing stream with absolutely no problems to cross.
I then took LTS’s advice and headed for Hwy 120 E. south of Mono Lake to car camp for the night in the forest there. A good spot, with a beautiful sunrise over Mono lake the next morning.

Pic. 16. Mono Lake Monitor Pass had changed significantly in 4 days. The grass was taller and greener. The wildflowers were in full bloom. The scent of it all was thick, pungent and overpowering. Impressive!

Pic. 17. Monitor Pass Pic. 18. Monitor Pass By the time I got back to Ukiah it was hot. The forecast for Saturday was unsurprising – a high of 107 degrees, with only slightly less on Sunday and Monday. Time to turn on the AC and stay indoors writing trip reports all day.

Best ~ Michaelzim

Great TR Michael.

Awesome TR. Going to overlap this trip in 2 days from Florence Lake to Sabrina and back. Will create a TR on this and an attempt to detour the SJR bridge washout (up the northern mountain side and into Evolution Valley).

BTW, you can upload your images to https://imgbb.com and link into here. The site was design for images linking from phpBB.

Wow. Great trail report.

Where is “Pic. 3 Hitting a wall”? Is that below Loch Leven?

Edit: Is it this area?

Great TR to a area I know very well. We went over Piute Pass last week of July in 1983(I think it was July 23) and there was way too much snow for us to fish. No way we could make it to Puppet. We went over pass and stopped at Summit Lake to take it all in and then went back over the pass to the trailhead(North Lake).

Texan

Thanks for showing us a taste of the high country! Still too much snow for me.
-Phil

Thanks for the thanks and replies!

@Matthewkphx - Yes, you got it. There was so much snow in that section below Loch Leven that I missed the trail section traverse completely. Going up to the wall then left (= south - though it feels like west!) looked like the best option until I got up to the thing. I nearly bailed at that point as the rock scramble to the exit end of the lake had some challenging parts where snow filled the clefts in the rock channels, etc., etc. Glad I stuck it out and it was minor league compared to what the PCT'ers do on an almost continual basis.

On a side note...I do have the feeling that many of us on HS Topix have been "put off" by conditions reports (or our interpretation of them) to stay home. It may indeed be too late now due to the heat, but I think that has been a mistake. It is just gorgeous up there, even if for simple in and out trips if less than a fan of snow camping. For 'younger' members with tons of energy, strength, and rebound ability this mega snow may be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the high country in its vast white blanket of wonder. Yes, it's challenging but the fact that so many people are out there in all this and have been for months, I find inspiring. Sure got me off my seat! And it was well worth it!

Best ~ Michaelzim

Thanks for the confirmation. I’m amazed at how different that looks covered in snow.

@michaelzim - enjoyed the report, thanks. Sounds like you made a good call skipping Lamarck Col, I suspect the approach would be a brutal slushy schlag by 10:30/11.

I'll be living off these and reports from others this summer; just started a new job and taking a week (or more) vacation this summer is a bit too soon.