I'll post a whole trip report, but yes, I had a rough time yesterday. I actually asked the girl in the portal store how to find the old trail. She said "look for the big rock at the behind the fishing pond and go behind it. The communication error was in the definition of "big". I saw a prominent 20'/sq boulder that I would call "big". She was referring to the massive granite outcropping 50' to the right of my "big" boulder.
Basically, I was off trail the minute I got on it. I ended up significantly south of the trail near lone pine creek. Most of my tracks do not show up because I was in a heavily wooded area with a steep cliff to one side.
If you look at my 5th track and go south into the woods, that's about the point where I decided to double back and see if I could find another way to the trail.
If you look at my 7th track, that's where I finally found the main trail.
And though i was lost, I wasn't ever worried...I was only lost in the sense that I couldn't find the old trail (or the main trail at that point). It would have been easy enough to get back to the portal and I knew that if I went up just to the north of lone pine creek that I would have to hit the main trail eventually. Unfortunately, the trail that I was following ended so I had to turn around.
I got pretty cut up climbing the rocks And I was just beat up in general, so I decided to head back today.
Lots more detail in the forthcoming trip report. And, I did take photos of the starting point of the old trail as well as others along the way.
