THE BACKCOUNTRY THIS YEAR

2010 will go down as a banner year for park service attendance, as thousands of folks who ordinarily did more pricey vacations took to the relatively inexpensive hills way past Labor Day. This was the first year we ever encountered a packed parking lot, with the overflow lot also packed at North Lake. The vast majority appeared to be headed over Lamarck Col with many planning assaults on Mts. Darwin and Mendel.

The 5.0 mile trail to Piute Pass (11,880 ft. elev.) spends about 2.5 miles winding from the North Lake Trailhead through aspen and pine woods, crossing streams over log bridges and taking a good long while to gain elevation until past the 10,400 foot mark, when the trail ramps up suddenly via stone stairs and switchbacks past a short waterfall on the left to Loch Leven and to the Piute Lakes on a terrace where one can contemplate the pass itself and the final 400 feet.

Finally one approaches the last 100 yards, which winds up between snowbanks to the saddle of the pass itself.

After attaining the breezy saddle, one is rewarded with a splendid view of Humphries Basin and Summit Lake, a glacier-plowed alpine tundra area at the foot of Mt. Humphries that once was an inland sea.

Descending 400 feet to the Basin, one notices the imposing bulk of Mount Humphries.

Anyone with the energy is encouraged to explore the lakes that rest at the base of this mountain, but most people camp at one of the two Desolation Lakes. Here is camp at Lower Desolation Lake. Temperature at night was 25 degrees.

From this vantage point one has a panoramic view of the entire Glacial Divide. The following pics move from right to left in sequence. Snowtongue Pass looks completely impossible from this view.

After an evening of coyote serenades, sounding discomfortingly close, we strike out across the trackless Basin for Mesa Lake.

Along the shores of this seldom-visited area, we note the tracks of our choir of the previous evening.

The way to Carol Col is by way of the obvious feeder creek on the right. The leftmost drainage takes one to the charmingly intimate Box and Tomahawk lakes below. There is no path and there are few ducks/cairns, but the way is obvious up the creek and to the left inside the cut. Looking back we view again the Glacial Divide. Temperature in Bishop is about 90 degrees, but up here the temp hovers around 61 in the sunshine.

As one ascends to the Col, the pass levels out to a watery flat that ramps up gently to the drop. In this area live several species, and we witnessed a couple redtail hawks coming within a hundred feet of us. Close to the drop we came across a flock of birds who seemed unwilling to take wing, perhaps knowing that the redtails were hovering near. Sierra Ptarmigans.

The way to the drop is deceptively easy. In minutes one scampers up to the lip.

At the lip of the Col, one then looks down. The best way is to take the middle drainage and work to the hard right. The others require removing the pack and lowering by ropes before fisting down cracks to get to something humanly possible and safe. Ignore the ridiculous cairn which misdirects people going down; it is a marker for those coming up. Takes about 45 minutes of careful picking to get to the next lip at Puppet Lake below. Just when you thought you were done. On the upside, we talked with folks who did the higher Steelhead Pass to the northeast, and they reported immense talus boulders and "the worst hiking we have ever done. Horrible."

Looking back up at the Col you see why few people do the Roper High Route in reverse. And it is steeper than it looks here. Still, it is much easier than Steelhead pass, Snowtongue or Alpine Col

Getting around Puppet Lake is fairly easy. Looking back, it seems impossible to find the actual col.

Puppet Lake sits on a ledge 200 feet above the ledge that holds Elba Lake, Moon Lake and L Lake. Its a little bit of boulder work to get down but nothing extraordinarily difficult.

Looking back up at the Puppet Lake shelf you can see that it is best to descend the easier talus slope that is more to the west of the lake, then traverse at the level of the shrubbery to the east side where there are prepared campsites. People do not come this way often and there are no markers. The elevation is about 11,000 but the shelf is unusually well sheltered.

ROYCE PASS

The next day one descends the slope to the French Canyon Trail, climb that for about a mile and then cut northeast away from the trail about where the Pine Creek Pass levels out to a shelf and a series of dry hills. Along the way, one traverses alpine sub-arctic tundra, passing tarns and intermittent streams for fairly easy going, albeit steadily uphill. This view looks east towards the Pine Creek Pass.

After clambering over the last 50 foot hill the austere Royce Lakes area comes into view. There is a sort of use trail that exists intermittently as one approaches the Royce Pass until the last lake.

Yep, it does get cold there.

There are fish in there, but the fishing is much better lower down at the last lake.

Morning stillness. Not a single ripple.

It is actually more work to boulder around the high lake to the approach than it is to climb up and over the pass itself, which is done in a matter of fifteen minutes. One of the easier trackless passes. The view to the northeast reveals Honeymoon Lake. The best way to do this and get to Granite Park is to simply walk down the middle/left of the drainage here, keeping as much to the left as one can without getting into the big boulders. One skirts the cliffs on the left, staying as high as possible for about one hundred yards. This extremely easy descent should put you still high enough that it is a simple matter to go up the ridge on the left via one of the two drainages indicated by the line of trees.

GRANITE PARK

After dropping down and crossing the stream, one heads upwards by a well-marked trail, always choosing to go left when the trail gets ambiguous. There are markers and trails that send one east to Chalfant Lakes, so be sure to use the compass. The terrain changes from bucolic to Roman Wilderness.

Granite Park is stunning in its austere beauty, over which reigns the brooding bulk of Mount Julius Caesar.

Although the trail obviously vanishes on the rock, there are markers to guide the obvious way. One can pay heed or not, as the way is clear. Eventually, the impressive rampart of Italy Pass (12,400 ft. elev.) presents itself. Hidden to the right and above is a small jewel of a lake shaped in the form of a valentine heart.

There are no technical challenges to this climb. The footing is solid and there is no loose talus, as one climbs by means of fractured planes of granite that often form neat little ramps that could just as well support a wheelchair. Gradually Granite Park recedes far below.

Then comes the final hundred feet to the saddle.

Its nice to pause for the view.

Brown Bear Pass is easily accessible from this point. Just traverse to the left, hop over the snowfield there and climb fifty feet to drop down to the Bear lakes region. Unfortunately, after five days of 25 degree evenings and no fishing, we decided to drop down to Lake Italy instead.

Lake Italy is not without its charms, but it tends to be heavily frequented these days. There are only three campsites, all located on the south shore, although there may be others located on the north shore near the eastern influx.

NOTE: COX COL& GABBOT PASS

There are two high passes, each over 12,200 feet in elevation at the eastern end of the lake. Both are listed as "Class 2", and both drop down into the Mono Recesses region, but neither should be attempted by newbies without doing some serious research, as the unwary can get into quite dangerous situations. Cox Col features a lot of "loose talus", which should raise a red flag for anyone who does not know what the term "Col" means, or have pretty good bouldering skills. Gabbot Pass in particular hosts a wide range of inaccurate, misleading and plain wrong stone markers. You get to and from the cols by passing along the north shore as the south shore features unnecessary cliff problems near Toe Lake.

One of our staff found it necessary to render assistance to a party heading toward Cox Col; he provided their leader with written instructions on just what to do.

LAKE ITALY

In the morning, after breaking up the ice in the water bucket, its time to negotiate the boulder-strewn shore of Lake Italy.

After about 45 minutes, one looks at the deceptively easy start to Hilgard Creek, the trail for which is marked only "not suitable for stock." Heh, heh, heh . . . .

A beautiful, clear trail appears. It looks so easy. The next two miles will just fly by ....

There are Disney waterfalls even . . . !

The camera date notes indicate these were taken before noon. Four hours later, after scrambling, hunting for clues, briefly pursing markers that actually went to a different lake (Teddy Bear), cursing, falling over sideways, and desperately clinging to narrow goat tracks above a gorge we descended those two miles almost to the junction of the PCT, noting a curious schizophrenia in the trailwork.

It seemed clear that two separate teams went to work on different sections of the trail. Each team was given different drugs. One team was given cocaine and this team blasted through, lifted, hauled and set prodigious amounts of rock. Various sections of trail boasted boarders of stone that featured boulders weighing easily hundreds of pounds set in earth far from any other rock; not really necessary, but cute nonetheless.

The second team was given pot. This team apparently went out to the site, smoked a few joints and daydreamed with the butterflies before placing a few cairns in random locations before going home for the day. At times the markers consisted of true cairns about three feet high. Other times the ducks were a single stone. Often the markers led off into some hyperspace of the mind rather than anything meaningful. On these stretches, the hiker is entirely on his own.

Again we had to pause to render assistance to a couple who got sent across the stream into impenetrable thickets by a weird cairn that made no sense at all.

Two rules came out of this:

1. Use stone ducks as suggestions only. Best is to find your own way that makes sense.

2. Allow 5.5 hours minimum for ascending or descending the rugged Hilgard Branch.

3. Don't smoke pot before doing trailwork.

Okay, that's three rules. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition either.

Camped that night near the outflow of Orchid Lake near Rosemarie Meadow around 6pm, totally beat, having traveled a linear distance of about 3.5 miles. Only camp of which we never took pictures.