High Sierra Topix

My daughter and I were looking to get in one more trip this year and as the forecast looked promising we decided that in and around the Tableland area might be just the ticket. Fortunately for us, the weather remained almost perfect throughout our late season trip, without a single drop of precipitation.

After a night's acclimation at Lodgepole Campground, we headed up the trail toward Twin Lakes before turning onto the Silliman Creek use trail. But instead of going up the slabs to Silliman Lake, we continued straight up the Little Lakes drainage. Despite not being indicated on the map, the drainage held a creek with good flow that extended all the way from the Little Lakes down to the Silliman Creek junction. The cross country travel was straightforward all the way to the lower of the two lakes where we camped for the night. The next morning we headed north from the upper lake up a sloping meadow to a saddle before cutting over to the crest. Despite a slight haze from the Redwood Fire and controlled burn activity, the view from the crest was magnificent, extending all the way from Goddard to Milestone. We then continued north along the crest until we met the trail at Silliman Pass. The entire route from Little Lakes to the pass was an easy class 1 stroll. We then turned east down the trail and followed a spur to Beville Lake. After Beville we headed south and took a break at the beautiful lake just west of W9518. As we continued further south, the route became a bit more difficult. We started by climbing onto a ridge that began just SE of the lake and then continued up a grassy ramp to just under 10000' before turning east and dropping around 200 feet. Heading south again, the route as you approach the NE side of Crescent Lake is a little tricky but it goes. We camped just south of the outlet. The next morning we headed our way up to the Kings Canyon/Sequoia boundary before heading east along the Kings-Kaweah Divide. On a previous Tableland trip we had stopped at Lake 11200 for lunch. The views there were breathtaking but it was also quite breezy. At the time we thought the lake would make a fine campsite if conditions happened to be just right, and as the afternoon weather continued to be calm we decided to give it a shot. We lucked out and the night's weather ended up being ideal, cold but calm.

Surprisingly, we saw zero marmots the entire trip. Maybe they've already settled into their burrows for the winter? We did have this one campground visitor: The next morning we headed towards Moose Lake. As I discovered to my chagrin when I stepped onto what I thought was just a wet low-angle rock, it had dipped below freezing the previous night. Other than the resulting pratfall, the route to Moose went smoothly. We directly descended a drainage all the way to the tarn that lies NE of the Moose Lake outlet then headed up the nearby ridge to the SE corner of the lake. From there we stayed high on the ridgelet along the southern shore until we reached a point midway along the lake where there are a few campsites. There we picked up a ducked use trail that we followed south until it disappeared in talus. I much prefer an ascending talus contour to a descending one, but we still managed to make it through the brief talus section unscathed. We then headed up and over the ridge we had been paralleling and started the steep descent to Alta Meadow.

This final portion of the route was mostly forested with some occasional sections of meadow. In both cases there was a lot of deadfall to contend with, and we ended up preferring forest over meadow wherever possible as the deadfall was practically invisible in the overgrown meadow sections. Probably because we were getting tired, this last stretch ended up feeling like the most difficult section of the day's hike.

Despite water having been plentiful so far, we were still a bit concerned about availability on south facing slopes, so we filled up at the first creek crossing. It turns out we needn't have worried, as every little creeklet we crossed (some of which were mapped, some not) still had more than adequate flow. What a crazy year this has been! The next morning we hiked out along the Alta Trail and back to civilization. After four days of seeing zero other hikers, we finally encountered one couple heading up toward Alta Meadow and several parties on the way up the Lakes Trail towards Pear and Emerald lakes.

October Flowers!

What a great trip and report. Great photos. Spreading phlox looked like early season. Thanks for posting.

Lovely trip report! Seems like October is the new September....

Thanks for posting. Brings back memories of a similar trip I did in August 2011 - with similar conditions! This large and late snowpack has really altered our summer season.
-Phil

Fantastic Druid! What beautiful country that we rarely get to see due to our dogs. I love that photo of the storm over the Kaweahs, and the colorful orange rock peak that must be part of Mt. Sillman? I would love to get in there on a winter trip from Lodgepole.

You've captured nice pictures of some flowers I am pretty vague on: Help us out sekihiker. The first looks more like a Brodiaea than a Gentian, right Bill? The yellow mustard looks like Wallflower; Bill tagged the pink Spreading Phlox; then what? The next yellow looks familiar, and is likely in the Ranunculaceae family, but which is it? Then some Mint, then a Violet????

You've managed to create a short, well-written, fascinating, and colorful trip report of easily manageable size-- how do you do it?! Kudos to you-- I am inspired to censor myself further. Thanks for putting this together Druid, Ian.

p.s. can you figure out that sharpest peak in your panorama-- it's just right of center? Could it be Clarence King? Thanks.

Harlen wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 1:00 pm You've managed to create a short, well-written, fascinating, and colorful trip report of easily manageable size-- how do you do it?!

Well, our trip itself was far shorter than your recent one was. And there are already approximately one million Tableland trip reports on HST, give or take a thousand.

Harlen wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 1:00 pm I am inspired to censor myself further.

Please don't. I enjoy reading all your rambling about your ramblings.

Harlen wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 1:00 pm p.s. can you figure out that sharpest peak in your panorama-- it's just right of center? Could it be Clarence King?

That's what we both thought when we were up on the crest staring at it.

Harlen wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2023 1:00 pm
… then what? The next yellow looks familiar, and is likely in the Ranunculaceae family, but which is it? Then some Mint, then a Violet????

For the final (yellow flower) image, my guess is Harlequin Monkeyflower - Diplacus bicolor

But what do I know ? hopefully Bill will come back and weigh in.

Anyway, I also really enjoyed the report !!

Grampy writes:

For the final (yellow flower) image, my guess is Harlequin Monkeyflower - Diplacus bicolor

But what do I know ? hopefully Bill will come back and weigh in.

I reckon we don't need to know anything once we've retired Grampy. I've happily let go of keying flowers, and now just enjoy the pretty little things.... besides, they keep changing the names! My stock phrase when caught out is the old saw: F@#$%^&! ... I've forgotten more than you'll ever know!

However, I do sometimes poke around for plants in Calflora, and doing that this morning I learned that within the Ranunculaceae family there are species of Delphinium beyond counting! Then I searched under the Ranunculus (Buttercup) genus, and if I could see better (I'm old, old), I could've found Druid's big yellow flower. His is a few-petaled, prickly-hairy flower, that I couldn't find. Here is the search:

https://www.calflora.org/entry/psearch. ... erby=taxon

Hope that'll work, and some better-sighted youth among us will sort it out. If not, there is a time-honored practice among some older botanists, and that is the making up of credible-sounding names. You must say it with confidence: "Certainly, your yellow Buttercup there is "Ranunculus hirsutus."

BTW Grampy, your Harlequin Monkeyflower looks perfect for it:

https://www.calflora.org/entry/occdetai ... /45324.jpg

NIce work.