Time for another Sierra backpacking and peakbagging trip. I headed in Sunday morning from the Onion Valley trailhead up over Kearsarge Pass. It is amazing how much less snow there is this year compared to the trip which I did only a week or so earlier in 2011 and was on skis much of the time. Once again there were plenty of Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) through hikers heading in and out over the pass to resupply. What a different experience this year. I continued on over the pass and past Bullfrog lake before turning onto the PCT/JMT and heading up over Glen Pass. Somehow I hadn't really expected this pass to be much, but it is higher than Kearsarge at nearly 12,000 feet and seemed to go up and up for a long time. On the north side of the pass I actually walked a few feet on snow as I headed down to the very scenic Rae Lakes. It was getting dark by now and I camped near Rae Lakes. Luckily the wind was still blowing and the temperature dropped fairly quickly so the mosquitos weren't very annoying.
The trip almost ended in an early disaster when I was pumping my stove and suddenly flames flashed back to the pump area and flared impressively. Luckily I had just put on a pot of water so I had that handy to put out the burning grass. Then I steeled myself and reached into the burning fuel to turn off the stove. Since the pump assembly was plastic I wasn't out of the woods yet. Had the pump melted enough it would have blown out of the fuel bottle and really made a mess of things. Luckily I was able to blow out the flames before that happened. It turns out that the 0-ring for the stove-pump connection was too worn/loose. Luckily it didn't leak if I didn't move it. So as long as I pumped up the stove before I lit it and didn't move it after that it was ok. (Since then I bought a new o-ring and replaced it for a much more satisfactory cooking experience - it turns out I actually had a spare o-ring stashed with the stove repair kit I didn't even realize it -oops. Still, for a 16 year old stove I can't really complain). I tried to take some pictures at night, but mostly just went to bed. I was pretty tired from the two passes with a fairly heavy pack.
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The next morning I spent quite a bit of time trying to get pics of the mountains reflected in the lakes. This area really is quite scenic. Unfortunately the wind started to blow which rippled the water. I also tried to get pics and video of the many (small) trout in the lakes.
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After packing up I headed up the trail towards Fin Dome and the 60 Lakes Basin. I first saw Fin dome during a JMT hike in 2007 and had wanted to climb it ever since. I was excited to see that there was a 3rd class route up it, although the beta I saw online was somewhat cryptic. Unfortunately I was mobbed by mosquitos where I wanted to stash my pack near the base so I continued on a little higher hoping to leave them behind (somewhat successfully). Then I started scrambling up the W side of the dome. The route finding was pretty devious and I don't think I actually went the easiest way, but it was good enough. There were many ramps trending up and left, so I got sucked pretty far that way before cutting back to the right and up. It was quite pleasant on the top with a wind block and no biting bugs. I spent quite a lot of time enjoying the view and relaxing. I was quite impressed with Bob Burd's summit register entry - "8:40 from Onion Valley via Mt. Cotter" - a most impressive time.
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After descending Fin Dome by a slightly better route I headed into the 60 Lakes Basin to find a place to camp. I saw a large screen tent and wondered what sort of camp that was. It turns out it was from a group of people working to restore the frog habitat by removing the fish from some of the lakes. This involved a number of years of gill netting. At first they got lots of fish but then the numbers drop off drastically. They do these in basins that the fish can't get back into. I talked to some of them and they suggested I camp along the ridge they were on so I set up camp there. I still had plenty of time this day so I washed off a bit and rinsed out some of my dirty clothes. Then I fed the mosquitos and took pics a bit before retreating into my bivy shelter to escape the bugs and read a bit. It was nice to talk with the workers camped there in the evening. I even got some leftover pesto rice. That night I tried to get some more night photos. Some of the milky way ones turned out ok.
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I got up early and headed off towards Mount Clarence King - named for the first head of the USGS who did a lot of early exploration in the Sierra Nevada. An interesting factoid is that King fell in love with a former slave and pretended to be a black man throughout their common law marriage while at home. Somehow I suspect she knew and just went along with it.
On the way up towards this mountain I passed a number of scenic still lakes with reflections that I had to stop to photograph. There were also a number of wildflowers. Eventually I got up into the land of rock and water (and probably snow normally, but not much this year). There was a convenient ramp up the headwall onto the south ridge and from there I headed up towards the summit. The climbing got pretty interesting near the top (when you start passing rappel anchors you know that it is no longer casual). The last little bit was rather difficult with a supposed 5.7 crack bit (with a big ledge under it so it was more like bouldering) and a final little move onto the summit block. This was pretty easy but featured a lot of exposure so it grabbed your attention. I didn't spend long on the 12,861 ft. top because it wasn't very flat and the wind was blowing pretty hard. I was a little worried about the descent but the top 2 moves were pretty easy to slither down and then I found a slightly better path down below that.
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From the col I continued south up onto an unnamed peak on the way to Mt. Cotter. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I could scramble up N Cotter but eventually decided not to. Instead I dropped down to the west of the ridge. This proved to be more difficult than I planned and I ended up zig-zagging back and forth across a slab on little cracks rather than braving a loose gully with drop-offs. Finally I made it to the base and traversed south towards the SW ridge of Cotter. This was fairly uneventful but long with a little bit of scrambling at the top. Once more the views were magnificent. I also set up the camera with the timer to take a few pics of me on the summit. It appears from the summit register entries that one can solo? up the NE ridge of N Cotter and then on to Mount Cotter but that it is a little spicy. I debated trying to get over to N Cotter from the summit but decided against it.
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The descent back into the 60 lakes basin was long and mostly fairly small loose talus. More fun to go down than up but still not my favorite. I stopped at a small lake which still had snow in it and then loosely followed the drainage down from that lake towards camp. I had to avoid a few steep parts but for the most part it was pretty nice because of all the flowers. As I reached the larger lakes the mosquitos began to feed. Back at camp things were a bit better because it was a somewhat windy ridge, but I still had to retreat into my tent at some point. Once again it was nice to hang out in the bug tent and talk to the folks there. That night I failed (operator error) to take a long night exposure. Instead I just lost sleep.
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One disadvantage of having my kindle with me was that between the long days, attempts at night photos, and reading I wasn't really getting as much sleep as I wanted. Of course I wanted to get up for sunrise photos or for early starts on climbs. Unfortunately I am not very good at afternoon naps. It was nice to have access to a library of books and my camera manual though. I also put the manual for my steri-pen on there, although I didn't get any errors so I didn't need it. The steri-pen is one of my new "toys". It uses a UV-C light to kill pathogens in the water. I can't really say how well it works, but it is nice to have it available when I am camped in a crowded area. Last year I pretty much just drank the water straight out of streams and lakes, but with the vast amount of snow melting it was probably safer than it would have been this year. Things I like about this steri-pen are that it is rechargable - otherwise I fear it would be eating expensive lithium batteries. It also has an LED light in case my headlamp dies. I do wish it had a smaller diameter tip so that it could be used more easily in gatorade and smaller mouthed bottles. What I really need to get is a 500 ml wide-ish mouthed steel bottle to use as my collection and treatment vessel. Then I can transfer the treated water into other containers.
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After my usual round of morning pictures and breakfast I packed up my gear and headed back towards Rae Lakes. Unfortunately this morning there wasn't much wind but there were much mosquitos. On the pass into the Rae Lakes basin there was a bit more wind but there were still a few bugs around every time I stopped. I passed Rae Lakes and then left the trail to follow a good use trail up to Dragon Lake. From Dragon Lake I wasn't sure exactly where the pass was over to the Golden Lakes basin. I was feeling pretty lazy but I decided I would try to head up Dragon Peak and scout things out on that side. On the way up towards Dragon I saw a small herd of Bighorn Sheep. I quickly put on my telephoto but the sheep headed up and out of sight pretty quickly instead of posing for photos.
The SW face of Dragon turned out the be mostly a talus slog but the top was pretty interesting with nice face climbing on good holds. The top was a nice point with a flat area to sit out of the wind. I even found a better way for the descent. The view from the summit of Dragon Pk was pretty spectacular and I thought I was able to scout a way down the E side of the pass to the north of Dragon Peak. It didn't look very appetizing though.
The next morning I packed up and started the slog up towards the col between Dragon Pk and Black Mountain. I was mostly able to stay on stable talus but it was very frustrating for the parts that were loose (one step up, half a sliding step down). At first I was following a set of footprints but I lost them in the bigger rocks. At the col I left my pack and headed up towards Black Mountain. There were a heap of false summits and luckily I skirted most of them instead of scrambling up and over them. There were a lot of sky pilot (or polemonium) flowers. Finally I got to the true summit. The descent mostly went a lot more smoothly because it was easier to skirt the gendarmes (name given to towers along a ridge - I suppose because they are like soldiers in a row).
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Once I had my pack on again I had to head up towards Dragon Peak. There was one peak on the ridge that was a lot spicier than I wanted with a pack. It was slow going but after passing that I found the footprints again. From the top of the ridge I cut right and then began gingerly dropping down to the southeast. This was slow going because there was a lot of loose gravel that led to dropoffs. With some delicate downclimbing I finally got past the cliffs and onto the talus. This went down for a long ways to the lakes there. I stopped at the lower lake to get water and almost went swimming. I stuck my hand in and it wasn't too cold, but I decided to hold out for a hot water bath later. From this point there was a trail, but it wasn't particularly good. It lost a lot of altitude past some scenic dead trees and more wildflowers down to the trailhead. When I got back to my truck I was disappointed to find that someone had left a plastic bottle of cooking oil on my hood. The lid was off and it had spilled down the hood and bumper and then glazed on in the sun. I tried to clean it off but not very successfully. I imagine someone put it there when they were packing their pack (I was the last vehicle before the trailhead) and then forgot it. Then it expanded in the sun and the lid came off and it fell over. What a mess.
I ended the day with a very nice scrub and soak in the Keough hot ditch. It was nice to rinse all the sweat and grime off of me. The water got pretty hot later in the evening, but by then the air was nice and cool.
Spot Adventure page for this trip to 60 lakes basin
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