Sierra Nevada 2013
by Harvey Lankford
Part 1 of 3 - Introduction
History and topography
Preliminary dayhikes in Mammoth
Part 2 of 3 - Backpacking trip 1: South Lake to Onion Valley.
Part 3 of 3 - Backpacking trip 2: North Lake to South Lake via Lamarck ColPart 3 of 3
Backpacking trip 2: North Lake to South Lake via Lamarck Col 8/6/13 Lamarck Col day.
To paraphrase famous adventurer Eric Shipton…on the matter of early starts, there can be no other. After a night of “anticipation-sleep,” Casey and I are up at 5 am. We get ourselves and our van to South Lake to meet the driver, who transports us to the North Lake trailhead by 620 am. Most people do the North Lake-South Lake loop by the gentler but longer 55 mile route over Piute Pass. We will do the shorter 35 mile route over Lamarck Col, the first day including some cross-country and boulder-hopping.
The first part of the hike is on trail, leading the way to today’s 4,000 ft ascent. We are well-acclimatized from trip #1, so we make good time, not thinking about it, just doing it. Above Lower Lamarck Lake I get the unmarked turn correct this time. Reid and I missed it in 2007, going over a steeper hump before regaining what at this point is an unmaintained trail, getting sparser. We meet a dad, a mom, and their 8-yr old girl. They claim that she has had a lot of experience (but I don’t think she was the 8 yr old who has did all of the 2,000+ mile PCT with her mom). The dad opines, ‘I thought this was an off-trail route?’ I remind him it will be soon. Be careful what you wish for.
At this point in the story, I need some quotes about the challenge of Lamarck Col. I could use some of Jesse and Carole’s comments from 2008, but they would gnash their teeth. Reid, on the other hand, had a lifetime experience in 2007. We still talk about it. Here is how he amplified it:
It is not enough for the body to be physically capable of completing such a trial, but the
heart and mind must be centered, focused, and ready. One must acknowledge the
grueling task ahead that the body will endure, one must accept the pain and suffering that
is to follow, one must love pain and hardship, one must laugh at death, knowing that
there is only life. At five hours the Col is in sight. Col is another word for pass. They come in all sorts of degrees of easy and hard. The approach to this one is routine on this side until the final steep, permanent snowfield to slant up, like Reid and I did westbound in 2007, or slant down, like Jesse and Carole and I did eastbound in 2008. However, this year things are different. We had figured on just kicking steps in suncupped snow again. That will not work this year, not without crampons, ice axes, ice screws, ropes, and risk. The snowfield has melted down to its base layer of old, hard, dirt- and rock-encrusted dangerous glazed ice. If it were larger, it would be called a technical climb on glacier. If Casey’s eyes had been any larger on seeing this, they would have been called saucers.
Fortunately, the 13,000 ft Col itself is little more than a notch of notches in the jagged Pacific Crest. The peaks around it are only a little higher. There is exposed rock on the sides of the icefield, and, as we stare, a tiny speck of a man is climbing up on the left. We watch and learn what he does. From our vantage point, we see he is just now arriving at the crux of the route, using all four limbs, stops, and surely wonders how to negotiate the next obstacle. I’m thinking ‘go left’ and he does. Now he picks up steam and we realize what looked like an hour of work will be far shorter than that. I go first. At the crux, I see the problem: ice among the rocks. Careful now with a few important boot placements. Then it gets easier. The slope is about 35-40 degrees, the classic angle of avalanche, but all the snow is long gone. All that remains is the ice to my right, and more rocks above me. Then a surprise occurs near the top. There is actually a tiny 30 or so feet of vestigial path, most years unseen.
Over the west side of the Col, Mt. Darwin looms high above Darwin Canyon where five blue lakes are stretched like rosary beads, geologically called pater noster lakes, rockbound in this high and treeless corner of Kings Canyon Sequoia Park. What we see are so many tons and cubic yards of rock, ice and snow raised so many feet above the level of the sea; what we feel has no relationship with known scientific facts. We are now in the Hall of the Mountain King.
We gather ourselves and proceed onward. There is no trail, just us, some intermittent bits and pieces of others’ footsteps, and countless boulders. Here is Reid’s poetic version:
Rock and dirt, rock and dirt,
all I see is rock and dirt.
Time does not pass by, but only is.
Trapped in a beautiful maze,
of rock and dirt.
Time is meaningless here. All that matters is the next step. Casey describes it as mentally challenging. Although it is “only” another 5 miles to our intended stop, getting there will take the rest of day.
We descend sideways and leftwards a thousand feet above the first lake, then pass above it on the right. Once again, I make a mistake. Reid and I had done this wrong in 2007: steeper, rockier, but straight to the bottom headed for the second lake. I learned coming westbound in 2008 that it was better to take the longer way around the first lake, on the blind side hidden from our view today by a bulge of the mountainside. But what my eye and mind see today somehow stupidly negates that previous knowledge. I am in the get-down-the straightest-way-mode. It is less knee-grinding than I fear, although I do lose my balance once while clambering over piles of refrigerators and Volkswagens, careening over to lean on a garage for safety. Dame Fortune had smiled. The deep gaps between these blocks were skull-crackers and femur-eaters.
Now down to the second lake and the Darwin Canyon floor, we follow the ‘shoreline’ of the other lakes in succession. This is no beach walk, no level hop-scotching. Each lake must be navigated on the less-nasty north side, climbing up and around and over boulders of all sizes, each requiring thought and negotiation far different than what we did on the way up.
Reid had summed up this afternoon’s challenge this way:
Our morning climb is far in the distant past, part of another time and life. Below the 5th lake is Darwin Bench and relief. California bench means treeline alpine streams, green grass, and gentle terraces in a Japanese-like rock garden. Here, the lake outlet begins its faster journey toward the forests of Evolution Valley. Casey and I pass the single large lake of Darwin bench, the area purple and blue with more lupines than we had seen anywhere else this year. Reid and I had diagonalled cross-country as a shortcut to 10,800 foot Evolution Lake, but I recommend this time that Casey and I stay with the intermittent path. Eventually, we join the John Muir Trail near its midpoint between Yosemite and Mt. Whitney, and trudge south the final half mile up toward Evolution Lake. We could go further, but….enough’s enough.
Around the corner from the main lake on a promontory near the cascading outlet is a hidden campsite. Surrounding us are mountains named for these evolutionists; Darwin, Mendel, Fisk, Haeckel, Huxley, Spencer, Wallace, and Lamarck. Muir’s namesake pass is ahead tomorrow, but for now, we force down some food and water, not hungry, just ready for rest. I don’t bother to watch the sunset, crashing early. Casey’s camera captures the hazy, smoky-red view.
8/7/13 Muir Pass day
I sleep in late, getting up at 5:17. Casey says he was going to give me 10 more minutes. We leave no trace left behind as we depart Evolution Lake. Circling around the north shore, a few other tents are still dark. Slackers. This is the best part of the day. The sun soon pops over the ridge as we reach the higher lakes, first Sapphire, then Wanda (named after a John Muir daughter). As we trod near the shore, no frogs launch themselves through the air into deeper waters like they did in 2007. Apparently there is a mysterious die-off and so the State of California is trying to ban stocking of fish in alpine lakes. Ahead is the surprisingly gentle slope towards 12,000 foot Muir Pass. The stone Muir hut is visible a long ways away. Its dome-like top stands out, letting us know we are approaching another of our milestones, first Lamarck, now Muir, and tomorrow Bishop Pass.
It is a long descent from Muir Pass to LeConte Canyon. Going down is never as easy as it sounds. This side of the pass is rockier and steeper. This morning our going-up speed was good, but our going-down speed is no faster. Casey could, but not me. Here is how Reid reported reaching the forested bottom 3,300 feet below:
From the pass we slogged down Leconte Canyon, down harsh brutal steep trail, which
wound endlessly, bleeding its way into the canyon’s belly below. The trail kept going
down, darting this way and that, never wanting to reach the canyon floor, but finally we
arrived. Once down into the belly of the canyon we came upon several meadows with
pleasant fields of grass and flowers, meandering streams, pools of water, and all around
trees thriving. Amongst the trees of Little Pete Meadow, Casey and I pause. It has only been an eight-hr day. With an early start, it is now just 2:30 pm. It is too soon to stop, but I recall Reid and I pushing unwilling flesh all the way up from here to Dusy Basin. I did not want to repeat that torture, and furthermore, we would still not get over the last pass today, no matter what. What I did not know was that there actually are a few campsite possibilities hidden in plain view halfway up the steep slope. I should have noticed them on the multiple trips through here in times past. If we had gone there, it would have shortened our exit day tomorrow. Instead, we watch the thunderheads build. I correctly predict that it would not rain. This time.
8/8/13 Bishop Pass exit day
We agree on a predawn start. Today is a 10 hr day with a 3,000 ft ascent and descent. We are well acclimatized, fit, healthy, and moving well through an area I described earlier in trip #1, so I will not repeat that. We leave the land of rock and stone, having completed our journey as planned. ‘A lot has happened’ is an understatement. As Reid reflected:
It was two nights ago that we left from North Lake,
yet no time has passed since then,
and only a lifetime has occurred.
