Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

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robertbond
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by robertbond »

Yeah just wishful thinking. I haven't been to SEKI or anywhere on the PCT so any of the recommendations above will work for us.
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by SSSdave »

Above read some ok advice and some not.
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by PointeAuBaril »

gdurkee wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2019 4:28 pm I wouldn't at all assume you can cross S. Fork. That'll stay bad into mid-July. North side of Glen Pass will still be full winter. High angle and, if you're not comfortable on snow/ice, I wouldn't do it. If I had to guess (and it's a guess!) Rae basin will be at least 70% snow. Vidette & Kearsarge Lakes will be great destinations. Even Charlotte by then. I'd not go beyond any of them until mid-July or so.
Thank you - sounds like going down the north side of the pass is not a great idea. Here is an itinerary we are considering:

Day 1: Hike to Junction Meadow and camp there - about a 10.4 mile day
Day 2: Hike to Kearsarge Lake and camp there - only about a 5.4 mile day, but about 3,000 ft of elevation gain with time to explore the area once we reach the lakes
Day 3: Retrace our steps and camp somewhere along Bubbs Creek trail
Day 4: Short hike out, back to car (a short last day is key for us, we are driving to Burbank once we reach the car and want to get dinner, etc.)

The alternative would be to replace day 2 with Glen Pass, turning around at the top of the pass and camping either at the marked campsite just south of the pass at ~12,000 feet, or doing the pass then hiking down to Kearsarge Lakes and camping there, a combination of these two options.
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by maiathebee »

PointeAuBaril wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 8:15 am Day 1: Hike to Junction Meadow and camp there - about a 10.4 mile day
Is the crossing of Bubbs after Bailey Bridge passable? Recent trail reports swiftwater and not advised. Note that this is still down in the valley about 2 miles from the trailhead, before any legal camping options.
PointeAuBaril wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 8:15 am Day 3: Retrace our steps and camp somewhere along Bubbs Creek trail
Note that last legal campsite is at Sphinx Junction, where you'll find an established camping area with a communal fire ring and bear boxes on the north side of the trail.
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by bbayley80 »

maiathebee wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 9:29 am Is the crossing of Bubbs after Bailey Bridge passable? Recent trail reports swiftwater and not advised.
good point! that section is always a mess of collected trees/branches along with rushing water. gave me a bit of pause even last July. however, I did find a huge collection of trees to safely cross 50'-100' upstream.

I have a trip towards the end of July up Bubbs. i plan to head all the way out to Junction Meadow on a day hike to check to see if Bubbs is passable to get up to East Lake/beyond(probably won't be?) I will be sure to post a few pics of my recon. including this stretch after the Bailey Bridge.
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by PointeAuBaril »

maiathebee wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 9:29 am
PointeAuBaril wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 8:15 am Day 1: Hike to Junction Meadow and camp there - about a 10.4 mile day
Is the crossing of Bubbs after Bailey Bridge passable? Recent trail reports swiftwater and not advised. Note that this is still down in the valley about 2 miles from the trailhead, before any legal camping options.
PointeAuBaril wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 8:15 am Day 3: Retrace our steps and camp somewhere along Bubbs Creek trail
Note that last legal campsite is at Sphinx Junction, where you'll find an established camping area with a communal fire ring and bear boxes on the north side of the trail.
Thank you for mentioning this. Honestly, I wasn't aware of the fact that we would confront a possible impassable section so early on in the trip. I spoke with the wilderness office at length about stream crossings, and they didn't mention this section, but I suppose it's my fault for not catching this update on the conditions page. I'll see if the wilderness office has any updated info tomorrow. If we can't go farther than 2 miles counterclockwise, then I'm not sure what we can really get out of the trip, because we can't go very far clockwise because of the south fork bridge being down.

If you were me, would you consider bailing on the trip altogether? Even if we decided to enter through Onion Valley instead, it looks like the conditions there are bleak as well, in terms of snow depth.
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by bbayley80 »

bbayley80 wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 2:37 pm If you were me, would you consider bailing on the trip altogether?

I wouldn't. what I would do -if I were you -would be to get into your first come/first serve spot at Morraine campground. get situated, then head out to Roads End. hike the 2ish miles out, cross the bridge and see for yourself if its crossable. if it looks too sketchy and outside of your comfort zone I'd hike right back to the Roads End wilderness station and hope for a walk up permit to go clockwise and just head up as far as you can. cruising around Paradise Valley for a shortened version of the trip may not be ideal, but its better than nothing!?


I can almost guarantee you-that if it looks anything like it did when I had to cross last July(obviously a lot could have changed, especially this winter and this spring melt) it will be doable. I crossed upstream no more than 100' on a solid jumble of trees and stuck branches. I hiked out to Paradise Valley on a day hike in early May and the trail was clear even then-a little flooded in spots. im so sorry that I didn't hang a right on my way out, cross the bridge and scope it out for you! dang. maybe you will do better and share pics of conditions ;)
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by PointeAuBaril »

bbayley80 wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 8:45 am
bbayley80 wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 2:37 pm If you were me, would you consider bailing on the trip altogether?

I wouldn't. what I would do -if I were you -would be to get into your first come/first serve spot at Morraine campground. get situated, then head out to Roads End. hike the 2ish miles out, cross the bridge and see for yourself if its crossable. if it looks too sketchy and outside of your comfort zone I'd hike right back to the Roads End wilderness station and hope for a walk up permit to go clockwise and just head up as far as you can. cruising around Paradise Valley for a shortened version of the trip may not be ideal, but its better than nothing!?


I can almost guarantee you-that if it looks anything like it did when I had to cross last July(obviously a lot could have changed, especially this winter and this spring melt) it will be doable. I crossed upstream no more than 100' on a solid jumble of trees and stuck branches. I hiked out to Paradise Valley on a day hike in early May and the trail was clear even then-a little flooded in spots. im so sorry that I didn't hang a right on my way out, cross the bridge and scope it out for you! dang. maybe you will do better and share pics of conditions ;)
As far as Moraine, we ended up scoring a room at the John Muir Lodge, so we don't have to worry about finding a spot at Moraine the night prior to our entry date.

I just spoke with the wilderness office...

--They don't have an updated status report on the Bailey Bridge crossing area at Bubbs, so not sure if we can cross here or not. There have been a lot of SAR missions lately which is delaying the recon trips, so status updates are not as frequent as they'd like.

--If we decide to hike clockwise toward paradise valley, they reserve 5 walk-up permits per day. Since it's about 10 miles from the trailhead to the south fork bridge, we'd have a max 20-mile round trip hike if we wanted, assuming we get a walk-up permit. This would allow for an overnight-er.

--The lower paradise valley campsites are still closed, but middle and upper ones are open. Looks like the upper valley campsite is just before the downed bridge, so it would be accessible (correct me if I'm wrong). Also, as of 6/18, "Lower Paradise and Middle Paradise Valley, 6-12" standing water along the trail about 100 yards long."

--If we can't get a permit to hike clockwise toward south fork, the Road's End permit office can help us find some other options in different parts of the park, though I'm not sure how far away those options would be.
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by AlmostThere »

PointeAuBaril wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:48 am

--If we can't get a permit to hike clockwise toward south fork, the Road's End permit office can help us find some other options in different parts of the park, though I'm not sure how far away those options would be.
Anywhere from one to five hours of driving. Mineral King Road takes an hour to drive all by itself. Generals Highway descending to the Ash Mountain gate is quite slow going, so the Middle Fork of the Kaweah trail would be another bad alternate.

I would say to get at least a midday start, the better trailheads would be out of Crescent Meadow (unlikely, and people are bottlenecking on the HST at impassible stream crossings) Lodgepole or Wolverton (accesses Twin Lakes/Silliman Pass, from Wolverton the Alta or Lakes trail) or any of the Jennie Lakes trailheads (Jennie needs no permit if you stay in that wilderness area, if you cross into the park you need a permit from the park).

Only the Big Meadows trailhead (for Jennie Lake Wilderness) is accessible by car, unless they have done whatever needed to be done on the road in the past couple days... Rowell, Marvin Pass, etc are past Big Meadows. So hiking the road or taking connector trails from Big Meadows to Belle Canyon, etc to access that park boundary would be necessary.

It's just a weird year.
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Re: Rae Lakes July 1st - Advice Needed

Post by PointeAuBaril »

Thanks for the info. It's certainly going to be an adventure, but maybe not the kind we planned, ha. We are going to start hiking early in the morning on the 30th, so if the creek is impassable by Bailey Bridge, we want to get back to the permit office as early as possible to increase our chances of having other options. I will post some condition updates once I'm in an area with cell service.
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