High Trail to Thousand Island Lake

We started our pack trip from Agnew Meadows.  Grandpa gave us a ride to the trailhead from the cabin early enough in the morning that he could get us down and then get back out again before the gate opened at 7:00.  We started hiking just a bit before 7.

The high trail starts with some easy switchbacks out of the meadow and then it surprised us by entering timbered country for a couple of miles.  It slowly ascends to avoid some cliffs, and then when it starts descending to the various junctions of the Clark Lakes trails, it heads out into open country.  I had expected to have continous views of Ritter and Banner on the walk to Thousand Island, but that didn't turn out to be the case at all.  There are some campsites in an hour or so (they may be illegally close to the trail and the water may dry up in late season, I suppose) that have fantastic views, though.

We took lunch when we hit the North Fork of the San Joaquin for the first time.  Then we were up and hiking along Thousand Island Lake.  That always takes longer than you'd like.  There were quite a few other parties camped along the lake, but we hiked almost all the way to the far end, so we had a nice private campsite.  The closest people had actually camped between Banner and the lake.  This is really one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, so it's not surprising that it's such a popular location.

That night we tried fishing, but it was very, very windy, and we had no luck.  It's also very shallow on the west end of the lake.  We did see a couple of deer and a bald eagle, though, which was nice.

Day 5: Blackcap Basin

I wish we could have spent more than one day in Blackcap Basin.  It's quite large, and there is a lot of it that we didn't have time to explore.  We focused on just the southernmost corner of the basin on this layover day.


View Larger Map

We got a lazy start in the morning, and were disappointed to wake up and see a pall of smoke had descended on the mountains while we were sleeping.  Eventually, the breeze did clear it out a bit, but it made the morning hazy and a bit smelly.

Libby in camp on the smoky morning.

Our dayhike was through an alpine wonderland of meadows, rocks, sand, and the occasional stand of limber or whitebark pine.  Most of the time, Finger Peak picturesquely framed our views.

Pearl Lake

We visited Pearl Lake, which is quite large and easy fishing for decent back-country rainbows, then hiked up a cross-country trail to Chapel Lake.  Chapel Lake was surrounded by little frogs, so we stopped to check those out for awhile before moving on across broken faultlines to Cathedral Lake.

Chapel Lake

Each lake brought us progressively closer to the foot of a spur of Finger Peak.  When we finally got there, we were right up against the mountain.  Cathedral Lake is right in the cirque of the divide and is beautifully deep and clear.  The country around it is quite broken, but it has sandy beaches, springy meadows as well as talus along its rim.

Cathedral Lake

We spent awhile fishing for rainbows there before heading off and away from the divide and down the outlet stream to Midway Lake.  Midway is in a shallow glacial scoop, so it's a less spectacular lake than Cathedral.  We then headed up a low rise to the south and looked down into Crown Basin.  While we were up on the ridge, we also found a cool marmot skull!

Crown Basin

From there, it was simply a matter of walking back to camp via Pearl Lake, again.  Libby and I fished our way along the east side of the lake that evening for dinner.  We then had a lazy evening watching the sunset.  I regret that a bit because I forgot that we had talked about making the short walk up to Regiment and Battalion Lakes.

More pictures at Flickr.

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.


View Larger Map

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.

Day 3: Bench Valley Dayhike

The third day of our trip was dedicated to exploring Bench Valley.  The goal was to drink in the sights, and it turned out to be a lovely place to do that.



View Larger Map

 That morning, we took our time in camp and then headed out through the moraines north of Guest Lake.  A Sooty Grouse was booming in Guest Lake's valley, but we never made an effort to find him.  It was amazing, though, to hear him as we hiked through the basin.  You could hear him for at least a mile, and he sounded about the same distance away all the time.

These lakes are all very nice to look at, their sparkling blue waters framed by high altitude meadows spotted with vividly colored alpine wildflowers, fringed by whitebark, lodgepole, and limber pine forest, and rimmed by white granite cliffs, boulders, and the peaks of the Le Conte Divide.

Libby at Horsehead Lake

The lakes have fanciful cowboy names like Horsehead, Filly, Wah Hoo, and Six Shooter.  I carried my fishing pole and found fish in all of them easy to catch.  Most of them had Eastern Brook, but a few of them had Rainbows.  I found Rainbows in one of the Twin Buck Lakes and Bullet Lake.  I thought I saw Rainbows cruising amongst the Brookies in Schoolmarm, but didn't catch any.  The rest of the lakes I fished had small Brook trout.

Libby took some time practicing her casting, as well.  This is at Six Shooter Lake.

One highlight we were anticipating was checking out Schoolmarm Lake.  You know, since Libby is kind of a schoolmarm, herself.  So we took a picture of her doing her best schoolmarmy pose on the banks of the lake.  What do you think?

Schoolmarming at Schoolmarm

It's worth mentioning we wandered through a little meadow between Filly and Twin Buck Lakes that was absolutely choc-a-bloc with frogs.  I mean, it was hard to walk without stepping on them!  They were tiny little dark frogs, just newly not tadpoles.

From Schoolmarm, we looped east and up into the lakes draining into it.  We made it up to Bullet Lake, and then climbed the low ridge south of that lake for a view further up the drainage toward the divide, and then again back south at Filly and Horsehead Lake.  It was the rightmost notch in the picture below.

Bullet Lake and an unnamed peaklet

From the notch, we dropped down a steep fault full of mint, paintbrushes, bees, and butterflies.  It smelled fantastic, and was pretty cool.  The hike back to Guest Lake was lovely, and I stopped at Colt Lake to pick up some dinner on the way back.  That afternoon we went for a swim at the interface of the meadow and moraine at the base of Blackcap Peak, which invited us to jump straight into deep water.  It was deceptively deep because of how clear it was, and it was unnerving to drop deep into the cold blue and not be able to feel anything beneath your feet at the deepest point.  Of course, after getting out of the water we shivered like mad until we had sufficiently air dried.  No warm granite slabs above 10,000' like there were at 8,000' two nights before.

That evening after dinner, we hiked up to a little knob above our camp and sat and watched the sun set over the low mountains to the west while mosquitoes whined around outside of our head nets, and bit Libby through her socks.

Dogtooth Peak (far right) and the mountains of the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness area

There are more pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157634834858133/with/9390813630/

Piute Creek to Merriam Lake

The next day we headed to Merriam Lake.  This involves an easy hike down Piute Canyon to Hutchinson Meadow, an easy hike up French Canyon, and then a strenuous hike out of French Canyon to the meadows below Merriam Lake.  From there, you meander through meadows and up some benches to the lake itself.

View Piute Creek to Merriam Lake in a larger map

The day wasn't uneventful, however.  We got out of camp around 8:00 (our normal starting time the whole trip).  As we crossed French Creek in Piute Canyon, Libby slipped into the stream and banged up her shin and knee pretty badly.  The pain would linger all trip, but was fortunately didn't impact her ability to hike!

Dad and I had been up this trail together before, but the only part that was really familiar to me was the changing view of Pilot Knob and the meadow in French Canyon where we had lunch.

 

I didn't remember the hike from the above meadow to Merriam Lake being such a grunt.  It's a very steep and sandy knapsack trail to the left of the outlet stream with only very small switchbacks. You basically go straight up the hill.  Thankfully, that's a fairly short stretch, and then it becomes much more mellow.

That night we camped along the shore of Merriam on a rocky area above some pretty beaches.  It was a good opportunity to bathe, and I took the chance to go fishing.  The fishing wasn't great, but I caught two for dinner.  After eating, we enjoyed watching the sunset and alpenglow in the east on Mt. Humphreys across the lake.

 

More pictures at the usual place.

Piute Pass

Dad, Libby and I undertook a seven day pack trip this July. The point was to visit the Bear Lakes basin above Bear Creek. Our entrance was via Piute Pass and we exited via Italy Pass to the Pine Creek Pass Trailhead. It was, of course, beautiful and wonderful.

Our first day we went over Piute Pass, and then down to camp along Piute Creek.  We stayed the night before at the Profitas' in Bishop after Joe helped us set up a shuttle by picking us up at the Pine Creek trail head. He hiked with us up to Piute Pass the first day, but couldn't come along for the full trip.


View North Lake to Paiute Creek in a larger map 

The day before we started hiking was stormy.  Giant dark clouds loomed ominously amongst the high peaks around Piute Pass.  Scattered sprinkles started at the cabin at noon, and we were hit by torrential rain on the drive to the Pine Creek trailhead that afternoon.  While Joe was ecstatic to enjoy weather in the 80s down in town, it made me a bit nervous about the prospects for our trip.  Sure enough, the next day, hikers on their way back out over Piute Pass described a four hour uninterrupted deluge.  That's something the Sierras don't see too often.

Oh, and on a different note, did I mention that Dad treed a bear at the cabin that same day?

Anyway, our hike on Monday was cool and damp.  It sprinkled on and off, but never rained substantially.  We made it to the pass around lunch time, and followed quite a crowd of people down the west side toward the Golden Trout Lakes.  Thankfully, our campsite along Piute Creek was perfectly solitary, with only the rumble of the creek, the whine of (many) mosquitoes, and a passel of tiny Golden Trout to keep us company.

 

Pictures are up on Flickr:

Exploring petroglyphs north of Bishop with Joe Profita

First day's hike over Piute Pass in stormy weather