TR: Vidette/Gardiner Aug-Sept 2021 [Part I]

[druid]

Fantastic trip report of a creative and adventurous route! Your timing was excellent given the iffy conditions this year. I especially enjoyed your photos and description of the basins to the north of Clarence King. You've given me hope that I may still be able to visit that area one of these years.

[Harlen]

bulaklakan,

Congratulations on your successful outing-- what a burly, and beautiful route!
They say that imitation is the the strongest form of flattery-- I only hope I am strong enough to follow in your boot steps.
A great trip report; I really appreciate the documentary photos back toward the obscure passes. Am I right that you guys were alone during your time in G. Basin, and 60 Lakes too? ... and how cool that you saw the Black Bear, that adds so much to the trip.

I just finished pouring over your TR, and the maps of it, and I just can't say enough about that route of yours, you packed so much high adventure into a relatively small area. "No Reason Pass," that one was a coup!! What an inspiration that you did it pushing 70 times around the Sun. Thanks.

p.s. Your "small duck-like bird" may be a grebe.

At dusk a small bird swims around the lake – it swims and looks like a duck, but is much smaller than a typical duck. It appears to be feeding in the lake – likely eating the afore-mentioned insects. And as dusk deepened a number of bats flit over the lake surface, periodically swooping to the surface. I’m guessing that they also are feeding on the aquatic insects.
I eat a stoveless dinner.

Your "stoveless dinner"... am I right in guessing that you too were feeding on the aquatic insects?

[grampy]

This was such a great report ! I concur with Harlen’s appreciation for your pairing of “historical” view photos with current ones. I also liked the variations in your writing style - switching between being quite descriptive (e.g. pondering the “roundedness” of modern backpacks), then downshifting to statements like “Wash up, dinner, to bed” . For me to actually try and duplicate your route would be a big “nope”, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading about you doing it.

[bulaklakan]

Thanks All. Some of the fun is remembering & re-viewing photos of course, which the TR gives a great excuse to do.
Harlan, correct we didn't see anyone else between Charlotte Lake and Sixty Lakes. A grebe? I don't know much about birds... let's go with that. I would've been happy to feed on the water bugs for dinner, but the grebe & bats beat me to it. I had to settle for crackers, salami & a Cliff bar.

[Harlen]

Bulaklakan writes:

The west side of the divide is an unknown. It’s a 2100’ climb to the top (to about 12,850) from our camp site, then a 2100’ drop to the upper Vidette Lake.

And from there, you climb a peak that is nearly 300 feet lower than the pass you crossed. Your name for that pass explains it well.

Though we do love the old 70's comparison pics, I really meant that I like your helpful photos down, and back to the difficult passes, such as King Col, and "Special K." The old documentary photo we'd really like to see would be one of your Great, great Grandpa Copeland circa 1899.

I'll see if I can link a Grebe for you, our docent rlown can help here too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIdb1vY-Q44 This is the smallest of the grebes-- the "Pied-billed Grebe." Does that look like your guy? Another we see is the "Eared Grebe," which is a bit bigger. Was the bird you saw diving to feed, or "dabbling?"

Lastly, re. the "horse or mule $hit," might it possibly have been grassy Bear scat? Michaelzim and I found just such a pile of bear scat up in Blue Canyon; which made us wonder at first if it was from a horse. Below is an example of grassy bear scat, with telltale bones in it:

gemini trip 036.jpg

[michaelzim]

@bulaklakan I can only concur with the kudos...and marvel at your trip!

I was at Kearsarge Lakes the night you left as had come up from Roads End en route to Gardiner Basin. Had decided to go over Glen Pass and in via 60 Lakes Col instead of Charlotte Lake and Gardiner Pass as so few hikers were around. With the forest closure I figured I'd explore the Kearsarge area and go on the JMT/PCT as only saw one small group and that trail crew near the lakes. Clearly in normal times Kearsarge Lakes looked like it would be an outdoor dormitory what with the number of (empty) campsites everywhere!
However, my plan got kiboshed by that surprise storm you so fortuitously just missed...The next day I managed to make it to lake 3435 (11,276 ft.) just east-south-east of the Col before getting dumped on c/o 15 hours of rain. At 71 being in the tent that long was a challenge as my joints get achey sitting around! Thus when I saw the sky the next morning looking very much the same with clouds and drizzle coming in from the SW I decided to abort as it looked like a freak unforecasted Monsoon, with potential for ????? days of wet. I do not have any electronics so had to guess at the weather - which then cleared up the following day to clear blue skies as I was on the very tame Rae Lakes loop.

Your adventure was perfectly timed and a much 'wilder' version of my plan as had pondered going to Vidette Lakes on the loop back via Bubbs Creek. I too relish the isolation and cross country passes (when looking at maps anyhow!) but I am super impressed with you taking on those mostly unknown ones you did, and the 'infamous' King Col!
Can you maybe elaborate a bit on that? Do you consider King Col class 2 on the north side? Was the scree and rock moving underfoot at all? Is it super steep with any feeling of exposure? (Though I'm guessing you feel more OK with that than me!).
I ask as am planning a redux of Gardiner & Videttes in 2022 and maybe that basin north of King Col too as have heard it is gorgeous c/o an HST member I met at upper Paradise Valley who had just rock-hopped down the S. Fork of the Kings River (Muro Blanco) all the way from Bench Lake...age 71 no less!

Thanks + for the great trip report and photos!

Michaelzim

[grampy]

Lastly, re. the "horse or mule $hit," might it possibly have been grassy Bear scat?

As Bulaklakan stated, it was fairly fresh. I would think that the fairly distinctive aroma of fresh equine poop (perhaps due as much to their distinctive gut bacteria as to their diet ?) would be a dead giveaway. Merely saying this as someone who, in the past, has scooped up tons of it.

@bulaklakan - I looked up your handle - curious if you’ve spent a bit of time in the Philipines ?

[solitaire]

Thanks for this report that Harlen just told me about! I especially appreciate the pics from '71, just a few years after I was born, but as I am now approaching mid-fifties, I value the inspiration (as my body has begun to hint at senescing)! I am very excited, as I just left my biological monitoring job of 30 years that has made it difficult for me to get away more than once/twice a year. Gardiner Basin is one gem I still to this day only have Harlen's musings to conjure.

[bulaklakan]

Harlan,
Looking at your video link, a grebe is certainly likely. I didn’t get a good look at the bird’s markings as shown in the video – it was dusk and the bird was some distance away. Mostly I could observe its size, shape and behavior.
The poop on the way to Gardiner Lakes wasn’t particularly grassy. Nor was a smell obvious. I didn’t take a picture – lack of forethought! At the time it seemed obvious that it was horse/mule poop, but given the unlikely location for stock it was probably bear.
Michael,
I reviewed the HST cross-country pass rating system, and I’d have to agree with the King Col rating (by Rogue apparently) of Class 2 (B/C2-2). Maybe/marginally it’s B/C3-1. As suggested by my photos, it was quite steep and was loose scree and rock. On the other hand there was frequent opportunity to use the sides of the corridor as hand-holds, and there wasn’t exposure in the sense of possibly falling and being air-borne. One could certainly slip, slide for aways and get scraped-up/banged-up. On this trip we also descended the west side of University Pass and last year descended Haeckel-Wallace Col… King Col was similar to both in being a long steep expanse of loose scree & rock. Difficult certainly, but not obviously life-threatening.
Grampy,
Good call on the origin of my HST handle. I have never been to the Phillipines. But the afore-mentioned step great-grandfather – Edwin Copeland – was a botanist/agronomist who spent a number of years in the Phillipines working with farm communities there. Later he acquired some mountain property in the northern Sierras and named it ‘Bulaklakan’. That property is now a beloved place for his descendants with cabins etc. For lack of any other creative ideas on the day that I registered with HST I used that as my handle.

[bulaklakan]

Harlen - Back to the issue of the trail $hit. Sister Megan DID take a picture of it, as below. It is 'grassy' and looks similar to your photo, but without the bones that make its origin more obvious. So I concur - bear seems like the probable source -

IMG_HorsePoop.jpg