Day 4: Blackcap Traverse

On our fourth day, we hiked from Guest Lake to Blackcap Basin via a high traverse.  Secor has a route that stays at about 10,400', but we worked our way quite a bit higher.  In fact, we ended up climbing the mountain, dropping our packs maybe 500' below the summit.  Still, Secor's route is class two, and we stayed class one the whole time.


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One surprising feature of the traverse was that we would come across the occasional little meadow along the creeks hanging off the side of the mountain.  We took lunch in one that was right at the origin of the trickling stream seeping out of the rocks.

Libby in high meadow

From that meadow, we straight up the mountain after grabbing some cool water straight from the source.  Without packs, the walk up the will was fine, and the view from the top was rewarding.  We could see from the peaks around Whitney in the south to Ritter and Banner in the north (and beyond).

Ritter and Banner

After leaving the summit, we picked up our packs and headed for Blackcap Basin.  After traversing a few ridges, we headed straight down to Lightning Corral Meadow.  It was great cross-country hiking across dry grassy swards and granite ledges.  The meadow itself was very lovely.

Lightning Corral Meadow

From the meadow, we hiked up to Division Lake to camp for the night.  The path from the lake was interesting.  There were lots of shallow fault lines running across our route, a couple of which were filled with slow flowing creeks.  The view from our camp at Division Lake that night was very lovely.

Finger Peak from the shore of Division Lake

It was a very nice day, and you can see more pictures at Flickr.