High Sierra Topix

Happy New Year!
Here is a report of a trip friend Craig and I took in 1988, from Courtright Reservoir to North Lake. I just wrote it up 30+ years after the fact. Parts of the trip are still fresh in my memory.

25 July
After a long day and many miles of mostly forest, Craig and I arrived at a campsite on the North Fork of the Kings River, just a couple of miles short of the Blackcap Basin.

26 July
We passed by the meadow near the turnoff to Crown Basin and had a great view of the west ridge of Finger Peak.

We made our way past Portal, Pearl, and Division Lakes and dropped our packs at Regiment Lake. We climbed up the south ridge of Mt Reinstein where we had a great view of Mt Goddard which we hoped to climb the next day.

We slid down the southwest slope of Reinstein, retrieved packs from Regiment Lake, and moved to a camp at Ambition Lake.

27 July
The next morning we crossed Valor Pass and circled around Martha Lake.

We dropped our packs at the base of the mountain. On our way up we were hit by wave after wave of hail. At the top of the ridge, a bolt of ligtning hit a couple of hundred feet from us. We decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to keep going. By the time we got back to our packs, they were almost covered with hail and we felt lucky to have found them. We retreated to a campsite near Martha Lake.

28 July
We slept well near Martha Lake then returned to Mt Goddard for a second attempt. The ascent was much easier than the day before due to the hail accumulation.

We made our way through the Ionian Basin and had a great view of Mt Goddard on the way.

We dropped our packs at Solomons Pass and headed for the summit. Clouds persisted but we didn't see much precipitation.

We returned to Solomons Pass and stumbled down loose talus to the JMT. We followed it to the outlet of Wanda Lake, had dinner, and set up camp.

29 July
Our next destination was the lower reaches of Darwin Canyon. We camped near small lakes hoping for decent fishing.

Since the fishing was not great, we decided to leave the next day.

30 July
We enjoyed the fabulous views in Darwin Canyon on the way toward Lamarck Col.

We slid our way down the ice field below the pass, tiptoed over loose blocks and finally arrived at North Lake where we hitchhiked our way to Bishop.

Nice! Thanks so much for these older trip reports.

Very Nice,

It looked like a great adventure.

How did you pull of the trans-sierra shuttle piece? Courtwright to Bishop? If you did it yourself, would you recommend the effort it takes to stage your cars and all that driving, or would you recommend just doing trips that enter and exit on the same side of the Sierra? - I am curious to know how I should feel about the benefit of the trans-Sierra feet versus the effort or expense required to pull it off.

Thanks for posting. This time of year it is great to get some fresh TRs to read!

davidsheridan wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 5:45 pm How did you pull of the trans-sierra shuttle piece?

Craig's dad gave him his old pickup which we rode back to Fresno.

It's a huge problem going point to point across the range.

Great to see that old report Bill. Nice route, and wild weather! That western peak of Finger Mountain is a nice pyramid. What mountain are you on in that photo of you with the "Hollywood lighting?"

Re. trans-Sierra hiking, one relatively easy way to pull it off in the Bishop area is to do a nice convoluted route across, and save a starvation ration for one of the shortest ways back-- Bishop Pass or Piute Pass to Florence in one very long day. You are already acclimatized, fit, and your pack's light... and hopefully, you are less than 25 years old.

Harlen wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 10:06 pm What mountain are you on in that photo of you with the "Hollywood lighting?"

The photo was on Mount Solomons back in the day when the lighting was always special.

wow... perfect timing..
I had an itinerary to get to much of this area in September this year, but cancelled due to the creek fire..
Great to read this TR.

It helps to think about how many days to plan for this.. I keep thinking you have to have 10 days to do any Ionian Basin trip properly, but perhaps I am wrong.. hopefully this summer.

Thanks for posting another epic trip report through some beautiful terrain. Your detailed reports have been a source of inspiration for many of my xc routes on the west side.

I happened to follow most of your route on days 1 and 2 last August. I have been through a similar route to your days 3 and 4 on a previous trip (although I still haven’t been over Valor) and Lamarck Col is my preferred fast track into the good stuff even in the snow.

But your day 5 route looks insane. Starting from Martha Lake, climbing Goddard AND Solomons then down to camp in time for dinner at the outlet of Wanda (one of my favorite Evo camps). The typical pack weight in 1988 probably didn’t make things any easier:)

Were you doing any training at the time to prepare for the long mileage days and big climbs?

Bluewater wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:30 am But your day 5 route looks insane. Starting from Martha Lake, climbing Goddard AND Solomons then down to camp in time for dinner at the outlet of Wanda (one of my favorite Evo camps). The typical pack weight in 1988 probably didn’t make things any easier:)

Were you doing any training at the time to prepare for the long mileage days and big climbs?

Thanks for the kind words.

We had some big days on that trip. Going up and down Goddard the second time was made a lot easier by the hail accumulation. I don't know how we got through the Ionian Basin without a hitch. It has always seemed complicated on the map and on the ground. Going from Solomons Pass to Mt Solomons was about as easy a summit as you will ever get. The rest of that long day was just plugging along until we got where we wanted to be.

We were in good shape and Craig is 15 years younger so he had a little advantage there. We had both been hiking already that year and we had kept in reasonably good shape in the off season. I was still taking advantage of the conditioning I had a achieved for running Boston in 1986.

Thanks for sharing this enjoyable report from a wonderful section of the Sierra. I finally made it to Blackcap Basin area in August of 2020. We went through Red Mountain Basin, Bench Valley, Blackcap and back to Courtwright. Lovely area and I remember finally seeing Finger Peak for the first time from the meadow in your photo: you've arrived! From personal experience and the stories of others it seems that Martha Lake area is some sort of magnet for storms... Did the hail make the long talus walking any more slippery?