High Sierra Topix

Hi all,

I'm planning a 3-night trip out of Bishop Pass starting this Saturday, 8/31. I have a couple questions about the area.

1. I see a few different first-come, first-served campgrounds along the road up from Bishop, but is it reasonable to expect to find a spot in one for Friday night? If not, is dispersed camping further downstream on Bishop Creek a reasonable option? It would be nice to avoid having to get a hotel room in Bishop.

2. When traversing the basins east of Dusy (via Knapsack, Potluck, Chimney/Cirque) is there any good way to exit to the JMT before the Palisade Lakes? We have to leave pretty early on the fourth day to get back to Las Vegas so the full traverse and back is a bit too long, I think.

Thanks!

1. Good luck with snagging a FF camp site; this is the biggest week for recreation, after all. In fact good luck snagging a walk up motel accomodation in Bishop.
2. Any of the drainages of Palisade Basin exiting to the JMT are steep, with lots of riparian zone and dense flora along the more feasible routes. The entire escarpment along that portion of Palisade Creek confront the trekker with cliff outs that must be threading the needle to send. It would be faster to continue to Palisade Lakes or retrace your steps back through Pot Luck, et al.

Ed

I don't know about your pace, but 3 nights would be reasonable for me to loop from South Lake, over Bishop Pass, over into Palisade Basin, down to the JMT at Palisade Lakes, head northbound on the JMT to LeConte Canyon, up to Dusy Basin, then over Bishop Pass and out.

As for campsites, you might have luck at the lower campground, Bitterbrush. The times I've camped there in the summer, it seems I was the only one.

1. Dispersed camp in the Buttermilks for $0. Use the map on the bottom of this page for details. Don’t camp on LADWP land.

For 3 nights, I'd do Dusy -> Barrett Lakes -> Dusy with the idea that wandering around both basins is a lot of fun. This is assuming you haven't seen either basin before.

There were probably a dozen open sites at Four Jeffrey over the 4th of July so I wouldn't be too worried this weekend. Labor Day seems fairly quiet now that schools start so early. But show up in the daylight to try to find a site.