Pine Creek Exploration 07/27/18 - 07/29/2018

[SNOOOOW]

Julius Caesar Pano.jpg

This trip fell together very nicely although it took us a bit to figure out where to go. Plan A was Lyell Canyon and summit Lyell/MacLure maybe 1 or 2 others. The smoke changed our minds so we decided Plan B was to head out to Sabrina for Haeckel/Wallace and some exploration but then the mud/rock slide closed 168 and so now we start wondering what to do...What about Pine Creek says Eric, I say there's definitely some good ramblings to be had with a 13er or 2.

I drove down to Mammoth early Friday morning to Eric's house and we packed up the van and headed out. He had already secured the very last permit available for Pine Creek so we got lucky as we had no idea what Plan D, if needed, would have entailed. The whole drive to Mammoth was ugly. As I arrived in Mammoth we started to wonder if we really wanted to be out in this smoke for the next 2 nights but we headed south anyway. As we turned down the road to Pine Creek and started driving West we started to realize that there was blue skies back there in that canyon, right on! The Pine Creek t/h was super packed and we parked on the road and geared up.

Our destination for the night was somewhere in the vicinity of Honeymoon Lake. There was a few rock/mud slides that washed out parts of the trail and trail crew was working hard and making repairs/clearing debris. We arrived at Honeymoon Lake and setup camp. There must have been 20 other people camped at that lake by the time the sun set. We took a quick swim in Honeymoon and Eric decided he wanted to head up to Pine Creek Pass but I just hung back at camp while he took off. He ended up running up to the pass, headed to Royce Lakes and then back over "Co Co La" back down to Honeymoon Lake sometime around dusk. After hearing what he had done I was glad I did not tag along!

Woke up the next morning and made coffee and ate, grabbed our day packs and headed up towards Italy Pass. Italy Pass turned out to be a bit farther then we had thought but we were taking our time and enjoying Granite Park a great deal. This was both our first time into Granite Park and it was impressive. We made our way up to Italy Pass and got a good look at Hilgard and Gabb. We had wanted to climb one of them as well as Julius Caesar but were not really in the mood to lose all that elevation just to gain back much more then lose it and gain it again over Italy Pass. So up Julius Caesar we went to hang out. Going up is easy, basically a walk up with some zig zagging, towards the top it gets class 2 to the summit. On the summit we eyeballed Hilgard and Gabb again and (I) definitely did not want anything to do with either of them today. We looked down into Chalfant Lakes and thought that would be a good area to take a dip so off we went. It seemed we could take the SE slopes directly down into that Chalfant Lakes area of Granite Park. We had 0 info except the topo and it seemed like a good idea. The route was very loose but with caution one can easily negotiate through there albeit very slowly. Once thru the steepish loose section one can boulder hop east into the beautiful Chalfant Lakes.

Italy Pass.jpg

Me Hilgard.jpg

Infamous Rogue.jpg

We were VERY happy we went down to the Chalfant Lakes, if you're in the Granite Park area just sneak right on over the ridge into Chalfant Lakes, you won't be disappointed. Even though it is a very green and wet area the bugs were minor at best and we did not see any sign of humans (boot prints in mud, pole marks etc...) which was very nice considering all the people at Honeymoon and in Granite Park. We stopped for a nice swim in one of the lakes and hung out in some well needed shade as we had bee in the sun allll day with 0 break from the heat. After a swim and snack we picked our line and headed south back over the ridge which took us back to the Italy Pass trail maybe a little over a mile up from Honeymoon. We ran into a guy who had 4 Mylar balloons attached to the back of his pack which he had found through out his journey and it made me think about Russ. This weekend was supposed to be Him and I bagging Middle Pal and I was very glad to be able to spend the time that I did with him. After a quick chat we continued back to our camp for another swim and dinner. 9 hours we were gone and I was beat. Around 730pm another buddy of ours from Bishop showed up (we were expecting him but uncertain if he would show) to test out some new gear and we all hung out around our camp until the big moon came up and we hit the hay.

Above Chalfant.jpg

Chalfant.jpg

Chalfant pano.jpg

Woke up and packed our stuff and hit the trail back to the car. We all had stuff to do and needed to get back to our lives. It was a great trip to a new trailhead and I will be back for both Gabb and Hilgard soon enough! Enjoy the photos.

[maverick]

Wow, Oleander, Jimr, and Ghost were in that vicinity those dates.
Thank you for the photo's, will not be going up for a while with skies like that, not conducive for my photography purposes.

[oldhikerQ]

Thanks for the trip report and photos SNOOOOW.
Granite basin is one of the finalists for our 2019 trip.
Hope that i can convince the gang to visit.

[SNOOOOW]

Wow, Oleander, Jimr, and Ghost were in that vicinity those dates.
Thank you for the photo's, will not be going up for a while with skies like that, not conducive for my photography purposes.

You're both welcome.
Ya Mav, it sounds like we all ended up in that area on last minute notice. It would have been nice to stop in and say hi but oh well.

Q - I would definitely recommend it. It is about 3k' uphill to Honeymoon Lake but a very good jumping off point to explore Granite Park/Chalfant Lakes/ Royce Lakes.

[oldhikerQ]

SNOOOOW,
Thanks for the information. The tentative itinerary has us coming in over Paiute Pass and leaving via the Pine Creek TH.
Less uphill at the beginning for us old guys.