Some day this trip report will be over!
WEEK 12
MAP PHOTOS After a late morning discussing gear with fellow hikers I found myself on this stretch of trail yet again. Up past the bridge but this time not entering the park again but heading up Piute Creek. The seemingly continuous storm was rearing it's ugly head once again. This however provided some shade from an other wise very hot and exposed section of trail.
Along the many cascades I tested out my cameras built in
ND feature. But among the pleasant hiking and playing with photos the rain came once again and thunder was sounding over head. When I reached Hutchinson Meadow a group of guys were enjoying a block of cheese and offered me some. We then leap frogged most of the way up the uneventful climb into
Humphreys Basin. By this time the storm had broke and everything was calm and peaceful.
When I reached the creek that drains the Desolation Lakes I began cross country. I came across an area that was littered with trash and had a fire pit in between some rocks with melted up pieces of metal in it. The worst trash was some sort of
tarp and poles. When I reached Lower Desolation Lake I was once again treated to the rare calm evening with beautiful reflection shots.
After the easy stroll up to
Desolation Lake it was time to find a camp after this long day of climbing but the lake surprising had little in established camp sites on the West shore so I picked a
random spot and got set up but I was unable to spend much time handling business when there were so many
beautiful photos to take!
After an
amazing sunset I finally took to cooking in the last light where I was startled by a rabbit that snuck up behind me wishing to share dinner. Having returned to Humphreys Basin two more times since this first visit I can say that it has the most abundant population of rabbits I have ever seen in the Sierra and also the largest!
The next day was my layover and gladly so since the weather turned bad early and rained on and off nearly all day and into the evening so I did very little beyond laying in my tent.
The journey from Desolation Lake to the top of
Puppet Pass is an easy class 1 stroll. The nice views were only marred by the threatening clouds the once again showed their ugly face. After nearly two weeks of rain it was just getting old.
I made the easy talus hop to the bottom and did a small lake tour by going around Paris and down to Alsace Lake before moving down to
the NE. I had yet to reach the valley floor before the rain had caught up with me. For whatever reasons I decided to not push on further than about where you begin up to Merriam Lake. But on this stretch of canyon I had a hard time finding a place to camp. Every 50 yards I would find a fire pit with absolutely no place to set up a tent until I finally located a nice campsite which had a few Rangers hiding under trees. After a nice chat with them I asked if they were staying at this site. They were not but they said it was illegal due to how close to water it was and that they planned to destroy the site. Great I thought so they directed me to a less than ideal yet adequate location.
After hours of rain I set out to collect what wood I could to build a fire. Not an easy task after two weeks of rain but I got a nice blaze going and two girls camping near by who clearly did not want to deal with all the trouble I went through came over and joined me for the rest of the night by the fire.
One more day down and I set off up the hill towards Merriam Lake where I picked up a nice use trail that took me into the flats of this
idyllic cirque. Reaching
Merriam I found it to be a very beautiful lake with unnamed peaks just begging to be climbed.
Pushing on past
one lake after another up to
Feather Pass the terrain was a beautiful and easy stretch of Sierra landscape that show cased some of the best the range has to offer. Reaching the top I toyed with the thought of climbing Feather Peak but the intimidating looking class 3 ridge was more than I wanted from an unscheduled run to the top.
Feather Pass proved to be fairly easy with only a small section of shelves to navigate down before reaching the typical talus hop and onto
pleasant terrain again passing
Bear Paw and Ursa where I took a gully up to the SW side of Black Bear Lake. Only here did I have slight trouble getting down to shore level where I met two guys fishing on a day hike.
Black Bear Lake thankfully had fabulous camping on it's
NW shore and I went for a dip in the small tarn lake next to it.
Climbing
White Bear Pass wasn't much more than a hump to climb although the top had me into some easy class 3 rocks because of the way I went. Before crossing it however I went to the West shore of
White Bear Lake to get a view lower into the basin.
White Bear Pass was a bit like Feather in navigating a section of shelves before getting to easier terrain. I made the mistake of staying too far left and had to take plenty of class 3 but none of it was a problem and before I knew it I was trolling along the shores of
Brown Bear Lake with Mt. Hillgard looming in the background.
The terrain throughout this area was an idyllic class 1 stroll out to the
Hilgard Branch past beautiful small cascades and up to
Italy Lake which is rimmed by large and beautiful peaks. I continued the class 1 stroll with the occasional small field of talus to hop until I strolled into a camp at Toe Lake for lunch. This was supposed to be my destination for the day but it was so early and I felt fine along with it being a class 1 walk up to Gabbot Pass I decided to just
push on up. The North side involves much more
talus work yet is still a beautiful journey while you pass the drainage displaying
glacier flower colors. Once I had reached the
view point looking into the Second Recess it was a glorious sight. I had to pry myself away from the view with each step as I made my way down to
Upper Mills Creek Lake. A place fit for a king where I thought about just staying here due to how awesome it was but I decided to go ahead and push further
down canyon. I decided the zig zag down the slabs to
Lower Mills Creek Lake which also proved to be an amazing place. Although there was a nice place to set up my tent close by I felt like laying out on the granite and enjoy the beautiful view and the night sky. I should be safe I thought as there was not a cloud in the sky by the time night fell and it had not rained in two days. I woke up at 1am to small drops starting to hit me. You have to be fucking kidding I thought! Flashes of lightning were coming in the direction of Lake Edison. I jumped up and ran over to the flat spot and quickly set up my tent and got all my gear inside. Before long a full blown thunderstorm was under way in the middle of the night! I ignored it and tried to sleep.
Making my way down the Second Recess wasn't very difficult but also not completely straight forward. At times I found a use trail until I steadily followed it down the steep section of canyon by large cascades offering
nice views. Once in the forest below I found the proper maintained trail and began making good time. A group of older ladies gave me some nice candies and I steadily made my way down canyon. Once I had grinded my way all the way down to Edison I decided to try walking around the lake. At first it was great
strolling along on solid ground but as the lake rounded a corner I was
cliffed out and was forced up. I ended up friction climbing some class 5 slabs cursing that I had gone this way until I finally got back onto the trail and made the final grind out where I ended the week at the best rest stop in the Sierra. Vermillion Valley Resort.
