Morgan-Pine Creek etc 7/21-28 (Gold at End of Rainbow II)
Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:04 pm
Note: As commonly the case the fishing part is "asynchronous" and given at the end of this report.
To compare with the slight route overlap on Gold at the End of the Rainbow 2015 see the old post: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13276
Starting in 2017, I have scheduled my summer to build to the featured High Sierra backpacking trip with my daughter, Dawn, bringing back the days of my youth when the year's highlight was a High Sierra peak bagging trip with my dad. The recent tradition began with a 3-day trip with Dawn to the Meeks Creek area in Desolation, then in 2018 it was a 5-day off trail loop to the Silver Divide out of Edison, and then the challenging 7-day off trail (with lots of snow hiking/climbing) Clark Range-Ansel Adams Wilderness trip of 2019. Last year was a turning point in trip planning in that I couldn't see putting together a future trip covering so much "new" (to me) ground with creative off trail routes. In addition, Dawn left me in the dust on most ascents (especially on trail) and whereas she is one of the strongest hikers I've ever seen for her age, I wondered if I was really showing my age at 60. This year I trained much harder, but Dawn was also in much better shape going in. In 2018 and 2019 we had planned to take the trip with my old death march buddy Todd Ramsden (alumni of trips such as Tunechuck 2008 and Gold at the end of the Rainbow 2015) but injury kept him out of one trip and his schedule precluded the other. This year my old death march buddy would join my new one and we have the two guys in the 60s (Todd 62, me turning 61 this coming weekend) with the young (14 going on 15) backcountry ace. After an entire off season of planning I chose to do an 8-day trip that overlapped part of the 2015 Gold at the End of the Rainbow (Little Lakes Valley to North Lake) trip, but explored new ground (in the Morgan Creek-Pine Creek-Lake Italy areas. Although aimed to be mainly off trail, the distance covered would be less than trips of the past. Most of our days were about 5 miles of hiking distance. Of course fishing potential constituted a significant part of the plan with the main goal to get Dawn her first golden (as well to break her 0 for 2020 skunk).
For East Side trips such as this I've traditionally stayed in a motel the night before hiking in, and for long trips (7 days plus) Judy and I always booked a room for the evening of when we hiked out given the long drive back to the Bay Area. But times are different in 2020. My family vetoed this plan on account of the virus risk, so we aimed to primitive camp on day zero reasonably close (ie within less than hour driving time) to our trailhead, and we'd hope I got sufficient sleep on night 7, so that the 6-hour drive home wouldn't be too much on day 8 (which was a much easier final day than those of the big trips with Judy in 90s). The change in our day zero (Monday Jul. 20) sleeping spot would be the only impact of the pandemic on the trip. I used the old Pathfinder to find a nice dispersed camp spot near McGee Creek. Judy and Lee prepared delicious bento boxes for me and Dawn---better than anything we could have snagged at a restaurant--so we didn't need to do any cooking when pulled into camp just before sundown. We set up camp with my "luxury car camping" set up, which includes the 4-person tent (last used on the west Desolation trip) that is big enough to fit the two twin size mattresses I brought for the purpose. In addition to comfort, the game plan was to have a separate set up so as to keep our backpacks fully assembled. In addition to fine sunset views over Lake Crowley to Glass Mtn and the White Mtns, we were also treated to a comet view that may have been even better than the west Desolation view we had a few nights before. Todd was doing the standard day zero and day 8 move of getting a room, with the likely revision (for safety/hygiene) being his choice of a high-end choice in Mammoth rather than the more budget-oriented places we'd normally choose. In keeping with an old tradition, I baked a loaf of banana nut bread (with cranberries): this was dessert on night zero, breakfast on day 1, with the remainder being packed in. In addition, the morning began with my "coffee substitute", the cool mint chocolate chip Clif Bar I use to keep my caffeine withdrawal headache away. We arranged to meet Todd at about 7 am (Tues. Jul. 21) at the Pine Creek trailhead and we arrived shortly before that with Todd pulling into the parking lot before I opened the driver's side door. After 2020-style distanced greetings, we donned our packs and trudged up the Morgan Pass road/trail. It's a road to the tungsten mine (500' of gain) then an unmaintained dirt road after that. Both the Pine Creek and Morgan Creek canyons are especially steep-sided and narrow owing to the resistant nature of the metamorphic rock making up the walls, especially the gray limestone/marble. The Morgan Creek trail has a constant and relentless grade with a coarsely rocky tread and many boulders lying on it. As I expected, there was absolutely zero water between the Pine Creek trailhead (7400') and where the trail crosses Morgan Creek at about 9600' elevation. We carried 2L of water which was sufficient because we had an early start (ca.0715) to ascend this exposed, south-facing stretch. There are two places where debris flow chutes have completely washed out the trail/road. The lower one can be bypassed by cutting a switchback, something that Dawn and I didn't realize until we had done some delicate "dirt class 3" to cross it. Todd saw the difficulty me and Dawn were encountering and started to bypass at which time I noticed that the trail did in fact switchback to the higher level he was headed. The higher wash out is not so easily bypassed. There is a use trail that detours >50' of elevation above the tread to cross the chute higher on the face where it is less steep. Someone has left a small length of rope in place to aid with the crossing of the west wall of the chute on this bypass. Not far after the higher washout the trail/road has several splits near some of the old mine workings then finally reaches water. At a shaded switchback next to the stream we bade the trail farewell--we would be almost entirely trailless until day 8--and headed a short distance up to wooded Bear Lake. The short stretch of off trail hiking was easy, finishing off an efficient first day of some 5 miles of hiking with 2700+ feet of gain. We were all in good hiking form and I found that the more intense conditioning (as well as two warm up backpack trips) paid off, as I set the pace as did in the years past and would for the duration of the trip. After setting up camp, a brief thunderstorm dropped some rain, but weather was otherwise mild. It was a bit warm, and with the lack of evening breeze we had some fairly severe mosquito harassment. Late that night we smelled smoke which seemed odd because the sky looked crystal clear. We did not realize that this was from the small fire that had started in Rock Creek (which shut down Little Lakes Valley for awhile).
Day 2 (Wednesday Jul. 22) on our fairly relaxed itinerary moved our camp a short distance and about 1400' of gain to Spire Lake that features one of my favorite views in the entire High Sierra. I have always liked the savage alpine ruggedness of Bear Creek Spire rising above this lake. The off trail hiking was not particularly difficult, nor challenging in route finding, but there were a couple of steep class 2 chutes/chimneys climbed to surmount cliff bands. A persistent breeze refreshed us, but when clouds blocked the sun, refreshing became downright cold. Spire is rather spartan in its camping accommodations. I'm fairly sure we reoccupied the same site Todd and I camped at in 2015 but some engineering was necessary to fit two tents in that area, versus the one we used five years ago. The site is very high above the lake and typical of the "high ground" sorts of sites I prefer for views and bug avoidance, although with the breezy, cold conditions, mosquitoes were a non-factor and would remain so for the duration of the trip.
To compare with the slight route overlap on Gold at the End of the Rainbow 2015 see the old post: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13276
Starting in 2017, I have scheduled my summer to build to the featured High Sierra backpacking trip with my daughter, Dawn, bringing back the days of my youth when the year's highlight was a High Sierra peak bagging trip with my dad. The recent tradition began with a 3-day trip with Dawn to the Meeks Creek area in Desolation, then in 2018 it was a 5-day off trail loop to the Silver Divide out of Edison, and then the challenging 7-day off trail (with lots of snow hiking/climbing) Clark Range-Ansel Adams Wilderness trip of 2019. Last year was a turning point in trip planning in that I couldn't see putting together a future trip covering so much "new" (to me) ground with creative off trail routes. In addition, Dawn left me in the dust on most ascents (especially on trail) and whereas she is one of the strongest hikers I've ever seen for her age, I wondered if I was really showing my age at 60. This year I trained much harder, but Dawn was also in much better shape going in. In 2018 and 2019 we had planned to take the trip with my old death march buddy Todd Ramsden (alumni of trips such as Tunechuck 2008 and Gold at the end of the Rainbow 2015) but injury kept him out of one trip and his schedule precluded the other. This year my old death march buddy would join my new one and we have the two guys in the 60s (Todd 62, me turning 61 this coming weekend) with the young (14 going on 15) backcountry ace. After an entire off season of planning I chose to do an 8-day trip that overlapped part of the 2015 Gold at the End of the Rainbow (Little Lakes Valley to North Lake) trip, but explored new ground (in the Morgan Creek-Pine Creek-Lake Italy areas. Although aimed to be mainly off trail, the distance covered would be less than trips of the past. Most of our days were about 5 miles of hiking distance. Of course fishing potential constituted a significant part of the plan with the main goal to get Dawn her first golden (as well to break her 0 for 2020 skunk).
For East Side trips such as this I've traditionally stayed in a motel the night before hiking in, and for long trips (7 days plus) Judy and I always booked a room for the evening of when we hiked out given the long drive back to the Bay Area. But times are different in 2020. My family vetoed this plan on account of the virus risk, so we aimed to primitive camp on day zero reasonably close (ie within less than hour driving time) to our trailhead, and we'd hope I got sufficient sleep on night 7, so that the 6-hour drive home wouldn't be too much on day 8 (which was a much easier final day than those of the big trips with Judy in 90s). The change in our day zero (Monday Jul. 20) sleeping spot would be the only impact of the pandemic on the trip. I used the old Pathfinder to find a nice dispersed camp spot near McGee Creek. Judy and Lee prepared delicious bento boxes for me and Dawn---better than anything we could have snagged at a restaurant--so we didn't need to do any cooking when pulled into camp just before sundown. We set up camp with my "luxury car camping" set up, which includes the 4-person tent (last used on the west Desolation trip) that is big enough to fit the two twin size mattresses I brought for the purpose. In addition to comfort, the game plan was to have a separate set up so as to keep our backpacks fully assembled. In addition to fine sunset views over Lake Crowley to Glass Mtn and the White Mtns, we were also treated to a comet view that may have been even better than the west Desolation view we had a few nights before. Todd was doing the standard day zero and day 8 move of getting a room, with the likely revision (for safety/hygiene) being his choice of a high-end choice in Mammoth rather than the more budget-oriented places we'd normally choose. In keeping with an old tradition, I baked a loaf of banana nut bread (with cranberries): this was dessert on night zero, breakfast on day 1, with the remainder being packed in. In addition, the morning began with my "coffee substitute", the cool mint chocolate chip Clif Bar I use to keep my caffeine withdrawal headache away. We arranged to meet Todd at about 7 am (Tues. Jul. 21) at the Pine Creek trailhead and we arrived shortly before that with Todd pulling into the parking lot before I opened the driver's side door. After 2020-style distanced greetings, we donned our packs and trudged up the Morgan Pass road/trail. It's a road to the tungsten mine (500' of gain) then an unmaintained dirt road after that. Both the Pine Creek and Morgan Creek canyons are especially steep-sided and narrow owing to the resistant nature of the metamorphic rock making up the walls, especially the gray limestone/marble. The Morgan Creek trail has a constant and relentless grade with a coarsely rocky tread and many boulders lying on it. As I expected, there was absolutely zero water between the Pine Creek trailhead (7400') and where the trail crosses Morgan Creek at about 9600' elevation. We carried 2L of water which was sufficient because we had an early start (ca.0715) to ascend this exposed, south-facing stretch. There are two places where debris flow chutes have completely washed out the trail/road. The lower one can be bypassed by cutting a switchback, something that Dawn and I didn't realize until we had done some delicate "dirt class 3" to cross it. Todd saw the difficulty me and Dawn were encountering and started to bypass at which time I noticed that the trail did in fact switchback to the higher level he was headed. The higher wash out is not so easily bypassed. There is a use trail that detours >50' of elevation above the tread to cross the chute higher on the face where it is less steep. Someone has left a small length of rope in place to aid with the crossing of the west wall of the chute on this bypass. Not far after the higher washout the trail/road has several splits near some of the old mine workings then finally reaches water. At a shaded switchback next to the stream we bade the trail farewell--we would be almost entirely trailless until day 8--and headed a short distance up to wooded Bear Lake. The short stretch of off trail hiking was easy, finishing off an efficient first day of some 5 miles of hiking with 2700+ feet of gain. We were all in good hiking form and I found that the more intense conditioning (as well as two warm up backpack trips) paid off, as I set the pace as did in the years past and would for the duration of the trip. After setting up camp, a brief thunderstorm dropped some rain, but weather was otherwise mild. It was a bit warm, and with the lack of evening breeze we had some fairly severe mosquito harassment. Late that night we smelled smoke which seemed odd because the sky looked crystal clear. We did not realize that this was from the small fire that had started in Rock Creek (which shut down Little Lakes Valley for awhile).
Day 2 (Wednesday Jul. 22) on our fairly relaxed itinerary moved our camp a short distance and about 1400' of gain to Spire Lake that features one of my favorite views in the entire High Sierra. I have always liked the savage alpine ruggedness of Bear Creek Spire rising above this lake. The off trail hiking was not particularly difficult, nor challenging in route finding, but there were a couple of steep class 2 chutes/chimneys climbed to surmount cliff bands. A persistent breeze refreshed us, but when clouds blocked the sun, refreshing became downright cold. Spire is rather spartan in its camping accommodations. I'm fairly sure we reoccupied the same site Todd and I camped at in 2015 but some engineering was necessary to fit two tents in that area, versus the one we used five years ago. The site is very high above the lake and typical of the "high ground" sorts of sites I prefer for views and bug avoidance, although with the breezy, cold conditions, mosquitoes were a non-factor and would remain so for the duration of the trip.