Yet another thread on the Yosemite Decimal System & rating backpacking passes

[TheFool]

Hi @erutan, thanks for the info; My GF and I completed a trip from August 5 to August 10 in Yosemite which included climbing Amelia Earhart Pass on August 8 from the SE to NW leading to Ireland Lake. We crossed over the pass at about UTM982837 11,663'. Below are pictures looking up the SE slope (first), NW slope (second), and from the top looking SE toward Mount Lyell (third). There was hail and rain that morning near Mount Lyell until 10:30AM and cloudy thereafter, but no precipitation for the rest of the day. We found the pass to be Class 1 on the SE side and longer and Class 2 on the NW side. We also climbed/scrambled Vogelsang Peak a day later and agreed as a reference point that VP is more difficult than either side of Amelia Earhart Pass. This pass and off trail route is a great way to reach the Mount Lyell area from Ireland Lake or vice versa without losing elevation by dropping down into and having to climb out of Lyell Canyon.

Amelia-Earhart-Pass-looking-up-SE-slope.JPG

Amelia-Earhart-Pass-looking-up-NW-slope.JPG

Amelia-Earhart-Pass-looking-SE-toward-Lyell.JPG

[erutan]

@TheFool Glad it went well for you, the photos look similar to what I remember! I heard about the route from an employee at Vogelsang and included it as a traverse to Lyell via Townsley to Ireland that I really enjoyed. It's something I could see myself doing every few years - wander around Vogelsang area for a bit then loop back to Tuolumne. Got chased off Lyell by nearly pure black clouds when doing it, annoying as I was a bit above the Glacier but a good call as it started raining once off technical terrain. Certain areas certainly seem to attract weather.

I've been up Vogelsang Peak from the scrambly loose approach up the ENE ridge, as well as more directly up the slabs from Vogelsang lake to it's N and would agree they're both more challenging than the pass.

[erutan]

To get back on topic, someone elsewhere suggested a bushbashing modifier for terrain along with sliding and collapsing. I was originally thinking it wouldn't be necessary, but have come around to considering this.

I think a "B" for Bushbash wouldn't hurt, along with S and C. I wouldn't consider Cataract Creek as truly bushbashing (there were some bushes, but one could pass through them easily and largely avoid due to routefinding and they were of limited quality). It'd have to be something where it's not an inconvenience, but a genuine "why am I doing this" moment. Otherwise any mention of talus could be there, etc.

Maybe something like

Bushbashing (B) - bushes are at least waist high and there are no paths between them for at least 20-30? feet. Occasional bushes one has to brush by here or there, or that have followable sandy paths between them with a couple of feet of pushing through here and there don't fall under this rating.

[TheFool]

I like the Bushbashing term. :-) Coincidentally, climbing Vogelsang Peak after reaching the plateau area to reach the peak there are bushes to get through but don't qualify as Bushbashing. The Colby Trail below the neat Kern-Kaweah Gap heading down to Trail Junction is so overgrown (at least the last time I did it in 2018) it may qualify as Bushbashing. Does anyone know if the bushes along the trail have been cut in the last 4 years on the lower Colby Trail?

[erutan]

I've only gone from Colby Lakes to Cloud Canyon, but that was clear. There's only a handful of spots that are truly bushbashy in the Sierra (Murro Blanco comes to mind from all accounts). Gardiner Basin fell into that category for me, as well as the one time we attempted to XC along duck creek up. Went like 1/2 mi in an hour and gave up lol. It does make the system a bit more universal by including it.

One other thing I've been thinking about is directionality, and how much to go into it.

Some passes have a clear "you want to do it X way" - from a certain direction it's a long steep up, but perfectly fine. Descending it would probably be pretty obnoxious and have moments of concern. That'd be a strong preference. Going against a strong preference would be something to be avoided when route planning unless there was a good reason or willingness to engage with that.

Other passes or peaks would be safe and fine either way, but a little more pleasant one way or another. Hopkins Peak (as a pass) is nicer from Hopkins basin and dropping into Pioneer, but if you wanted to slog up Pioneer it'd work just fine. Many passes will have more loose terrain on one side better for dropping, or more ledgy terrain on one side better for climbing. These would be weak preferences and ideally would line up but won't make or break a trip.

I'm not sure if weak preferences would be complicating things (or maybe just preferences, then have a "strong" one as well?).
Something like:

Foo Pass
Directionality: None
Bar Pass
Directionality: Strong E to W
BBQ Pass
Directionality: Weak N to S

[TheFool]

Including directionality is helpful. Some passes are also significantly asymmetric. For example, in terms of directionality Kaweah Pass is preferred N to S (climbing the rock and scree is safer than descending) and the south approach is all gradual compared to the steep north side which leads into or out of Kaweah Basin. Another factor is the amount of snow coverage. With snow coverage the rock and scree can be avoided, so it's complicated. :-)

[erutan]

Yeah, snow impacts are hard to break into a qualifier, I think that's best for the narrative description. I personally won't do or recommend Ann Margaret Pass unless there is solid snow coverage as the talus is utter garbage. On the other hand for the most part you can just look at slope angle when thinking of snow impacts, so in a way it simplifies things if one is comfortable moving on it.

Does it make sense to do a strong vs weak preference, or would it be better to just emphasize it when it would seriously impact safety or enjoyment? Everyone is different and weak preferences might be a bit more subjective, but I personally think of passes that way when I'm planning out a route (both Hopkins Peak & Grinnell Hopkins Ridge are a bit better W to E, so I'd swing that way if it made sense).

[erutan]

I've broken out the previous "sliding" terrain modifier into "loose" and "skidding" as there's different implications of them.

I'll work this into a side project at some point, for now I made a quick temporary site a while back @ https://cheery-hamster.netlify.app to make it easier to look over. It was getting confusing going through forum posts here. If the people that were generous enough to take a look at this before and provide feedback are still interested I'd welcome feedback.

There's still questions and room for improvement obviously, and these are the major issues that I see remaining with it: https://github.com/erutan/backpacker-yds/issues/

[TheFool]

@erutan the loose, collapsing, and skidding/sliding differentiation is helpful. Here are some routes that I think fall in these categories but you or others may have your own opinion. After there is consensus the more examples that can be added, then the more useful will be these descriptions. I find small rocks (ball bearings) Skidding (?) on granite can be treacherous so usually slow down in these areas.
1. Loose - Mount Kaweah mid-mountain, Sawtooth Pass sections
2. Collapsing - Kaweah Pass, Triple Divide Pass
3. Skidding/Sliding -Sawtooth Pass sections, Mt Hoffman mid-mountain

[erutan]

@TheFool building up a consensus on terms makes a lot of sense. I purposefully tried to keep them pretty distinct and didn't include any grades to them (loose, loose+, loose++) to help keep them a bit cleaner to understand, even if they cover a wider range of terrain. I can see the bright line between loose and collapsing being the hardest to keep clear.

Off the top of my head so I might be mixing directions/names up a bit:

Loose - Hopkins peak (both but more so pioneer side), Dragon Pass (W), White Fork Pass (W), Don't be a smart pass (N), Middle Mountain, Observation peak, Longley Col, Cataract/Observation Pass (N), 60 lakes col?, Gardiner Pass (bubbs side), Vogelsang ridge, Pilot Pass (top on French lakes side).

Collapsing - Gemini Pass (east side), Baxter Peak N approach (that whole area is chossy garbage), Rogers Pass (anecdotally), Wallace Pass (anecdotally), Frozen Lake Pass (roper), Thunder ridge? (roguephotonic), Anne Margaret Pass. Junction Pass falls into an interesting middle ground, I found it loose but with poor choices you could have something big move and cause collapsing. I really don't care for this and avoid it - I'd prefer stable exposure!

Skidding - JMT from Nevada Falls down (heh), twin bridges > glen aulin trail etc, top part of the Iceberg to Cecile lakes route, Sky Pilot col (anecdotally), King Col (anecdotally), Potluck Pass (S side?).

I agree that vogelsang ridge is a good example of "there are bushes, but not a big deal". I'd include the bubb's side of Gardiner pass in that too - after the sandy open forest at the top there's a lot of manzanita but there's foot/deer/drainage paths to wiggle through until you hit the climber access trail in the forest near the creek heading down.