A week backpacking to climb a few 13ers and explore some lakes and Miter Basin. Unfortunately, none of my regular Sierra hiking companions was available and I had to go by myself.
Day 1 (8.46 miles, 2621 ft up, 594 ft down)
I drove up to Horseshoe Meadow and started hiking towards Cottonwood Lakes. Due to a late start and coming from sea level without any time to adjust to the elevation I did not make it as far as I had hoped. By the time I reached the top of New Army Pass it was 7 pm. I took inventory. The weather looked favorable and I had enough water for dinner and breakfast. So rather than hiking down the west side and finding a campsite in the dark I decided to just camp on the pass. I got the sunset, sunrise, and a great night sky. All that with absolutely no wind.
Day 2 (9.04 miles, 886 ft up, 2766 ft down)
After breakfast, I hiked down about 2 miles to the first stream crossing and filtered some water. Then I continued towards Rock Creek trail where I took a break by the unnamed lake where I have camped in the past. It’s just such a cool place. Then I went on to Lower Rock Creek crossing. Here I took a longer lunch break and considered my options. I had no information about the water availability up at Guyot Creek where I wanted to camp for the Mt. Newcomb climb. So I decided to carry 4.5 liters up there. Just when I wanted to get going again a group of hikers arrived and I asked them if they knew about the water situation. They had info that there was abundant water. So I decided to go with just 1 liter. Rather than pouring the extra water out I was able to save the others some time and give them the water.
It was only around 12:30 when I reached Guyot Creek. Theoretically, I had enough daylight left to attempt Mt. Newcomb, but it was very hot and I would be climbing in the direct sun. So I decided to just rest and get an early start in the morning. I found a nice camp spot a bit above the trail so that the constant JMT/PCT traffic did not affect me too much. The disadvantage of the abundant water was that there was also an abundance of very thirsty mosquitoes. I gave a lot of blood because these suckers were able to sting me through my shirt.
Day 3, Mt. Newcomb (13,422 feet, 4091 meters) (8.59 miles, 3400 ft up/down)
I got up at first light and on my way after breakfast. It had not cooled down very much overnight even here at over 10,000 ft, but the first portion of the hike was in the forest and then I was close enough to the steep mountain slopes that the the sun didn’t reach me until I reached Perrin Lake. Here I got my first view of the main obstacle for this climb. The headwall of the Perrin valley. It looked formidable and not like there might be a class 2 route up. Mt. Newcomb does not see enough visitors to have any kind of use trail or cairned route. The best info I had was “stay left”. As I got closer I started to see reasonable options and even came across some footprints. It took some time to pick my way through the sandy/slippery/steep and then the rocky/steep section before reaching the gentle slope for the final few hundred feet of climbing. On the way down I ended up on a different route and it took about the same time as it took up to get through that rough stuff.
Views from the top were spectacular, especially down into Miter Basin which I planned to visit in a few days. The ridges from Mt. Chamberlain, Mt. Pickering, and Crabtree Pass are supposedly class 3, but I have a hard time believing that. They look like they have some class 4 sections. After a nice break, it was time to get back down. I camped in the same spot that night. I did not meet anyone that day.
Day 4, Mt. Young (13,176 feet, 4016 meters) and Mt. Hale (13,494 feet, 4113 meters) (6.06 miles, 1211 ft up, 1001 ft down; 8.11 miles, 3400 ft up/down)
In the evening I downloaded the inReach weather forecast and it gave a 30% chance for t-storms for today and then 80% for the next. So I wanted to get an early start, move camp close to Mt. Hale and Mt. Young, and ideally climb them on the same day. I had considered camping at Crabtree Meadows since that would give me a good starting point for the next day up to Crabtree Lakes, but the mosquito situation there was ridiculous. I continued up towards Crabtree Ranger station looking for a campsite, but didn’t find anything until I got to a big, flat area with lots of campsites right by the Ranger station. I set up camp and headed towards the mountains on the trail to Mt. Whitney. It was around 10 am and there were some clouds, but nothing dark yet.
I left the trail about 2 miles from camp between Timberline Lake and Guitar Lake. The climb up Young was brutal, very sandy, it took me about 2h. I spent 30 min up there. All the while from leaving the trail dark clouds with virga were looming and coming from the south. Fortunately, none became a T-storm close to me. About 4 of these cells moved past, I even got a few raindrops. One to the west would have ended my outing if it hit me. There was some downpour. I made both peaks but needed 5h 45 m hiking time round trip from camp.
Day 5 (8.72 miles, 2894 ft up, 2142 ft down)
I walked from the campground in the direction of the Crabtree Lakes trail, but it turns out there were cliffs in the way that the contour lines did not catch. I had to go down and around, then cross a swampy meadow. Turns out taking the long way via the trail might have been faster, but it was fun this way and no people. The trail to Crabtree Lakes is faint and requires attention. With that, vegetation, and mosquitoes it reminded me of the west side of Sawmill Pass. The first lake still has trees, the second is too high for trees. It has beautiful, clear water with a sandy beach. The trail ends here. Between the first and second lakes, I had to wait out some rain moving through for about 45 min. From the 2nd lake, I followed the glacier-polished slabs up to the 3rd lake. There was a lot of water, rocks, and boulders on the slab. Hard to describe, but amazing. In the middle of this I had lunch: a can of sardines with Triscits, this may become my new favorite lunch meal on hikes like this.
The 3rd and final lake has a use trail on the north side. Seemed easy, until I hit a snow field at the very end. The snow was soft, but being solo I climbed up and around it rather than crossing it. Next came Crabtree Pass. Only about 500 ft gain, but steep and no good route was obvious. A couple of spots that looked like good entry points had snow fields at the bottom effectively blocking them. Finally, I found a spot, but it had a choke stone I had to climb around. I took the pack off and put it up first. Without the pack, it was straightforward with one easy class 3 move. Once over this obstacle, I soon found a mostly sandy/scree use trail. I was glad I had chosen the north-south direction. I would hate to come down this slippery slope with a big pack.
The view down Miter Basin from the pass was breathtaking. There was a little snow on the top, but the use trail almost completely avoided it. I worked my way down losing the cairned route, in part due to more snow along one lake. I then picked a direction I thought might work and came across cairns in places, but never really enough to follow a route. The GPS track I had, followed a different route. Lots of cool lakes along the way, and very rough terrain.
Eventually, I made it to Sky Blue Lake where there were supposed to be some campsites on the north side of the lake. They were the first sites in the basin since the pass. I saw one person camped and found a spot close to some rocks. Threatening dark clouds were coming from the south and as soon as I put my pack down, around 17:00, I heard the first thunder. I got my tent up just in time to put everything under the rain fly and crawl in when the rain started. I then had 2.5 h of thunder and rain, some very heavy. The lighting all appeared to be cloud-to-cloud. The thunder echoed in the basin so that one could hear it for up to a minute. The frequency was about 2-3 minutes intervals. When the thunder stopped, the rain, incl. heavy rain, continued for at least 3h. No cooked dinner that night.
I have to thank my trusty MSR Freelight 2 which now has almost 100 nights on it for holding up in the heavy wind and rain.
Day 6 (10.32 miles, 2136 ft up, 2621 ft down)
I woke up to a beautiful morning after the stormy evening and night, had my coffee, packed up, and headed further down through the Basin. From the outlet of Sky Blue Lake, I followed Rock Creek to where it meets the trail coming from New Army Pass/Soldier Lake. The terrain was a little easier with more grass and then a big swampy/meadow area leading into the Rock Creek canyon. There were nice campsites with some trees and the cool creek nearby. As I got lower the trees got bigger, a real forest. It may be worth coming back here just to camp. Eventually, I ended up where the creek meets the trail from New Army pass. I took a longer break to have some sardines with crackers and dry the rain fly of my tent.
Next, it was up towards New Army Pass. I stopped at the last creek crossing to filter some water for the climb and mix up a Gatorade. Going up the pass felt easier than I was worried about, but about 400 ft below the top I noticed dark clouds quickly approaching, so I picked up the pace a little. I also tried to get down quickly on the other side. Of course, all the good campsites along Long Lake were taken. So I decided to check out the South Fork Lakes. For that, I had to cross a talus field which turned out less painful than it looked. I even found a cairned route that led to some campsites close to the trail to Cirque Lake. I picked a nice site and ended up having the entire lake to myself. Mosquitoes were not bad at all here. This time rain and a short thunderstorm started around 16:00. Afterwards it cleared up and I cooked dinner enjoying some last sun of the day.
Day 7 (4.69 miles, 141 ft up, 1112 ft down)
After enjoying my coffee with the sunrise it was time to hike out. The maps indicated an unmaintained trail along the South Fork which I always wanted to check out. This was the opportunity. The start was easy to find, but then there was a short, steep, rocky section where I had to guess the route before finding the trail again. The rest of the way was a decent trail and it will likely be my choice for going up to Cottonwood Lake on any future adventure in the area. It was a quick 4.7 miles to the truck.
The drive home was uneventful and I was early enough to not get too much nasty traffic going through Riverside. I arrived home around 4 pm.
A little impression of what the time in the tent was like during the thunderstorm:
Quite a trip Uwe. I’m missing that