Elevation Gain/loss (round trip, including routefinding mistakes): 13,000 ft
Time (including sleeping): 1 day 19 hrs
Most difficult climbing: short class 3 sections
Types of terrain: nice trail most of the way, bouldering, scree and talus, rock chutes and an easy chimney
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Ive wanted to do this hike for a long time, starting back in 2006 when I read about it in a trip report on Summitpost. On Friday 7/13 Tommey and I pulled into South Lake TH late at night. On the way there, we were constantly stopping because of big thunderstorms near Bishop. We decided to hike in for an hour or two and bivy just below Bishop Pass.
at the edge of the storm near Bishop
The hike in was very nice. The fresh air and cool temperatures were a welcomed respite from the loud, bustling cities in Socal. Bivying below Bishop Pass turned out to be a bad idea. All the moisture from the storms had settled in the valleys below the pass which resulted in lots of condensation overnight. I turned over in my sleeping bag just before sunrise and a bunch of cold water splashed into my face. Tommey's bag look like it just came straight out of the river. We decided that there was nothing we could do below the pass since the sun was going to take another 2 hours to get over the mountains, so we ate a quick breakfast and decided to dry out the bags on the other side of the pass in full sunlight.
view of an interesting peak from the top of Bishop Pass (6 mi from TH), the top of the pass turned out to be bone dry and about 15 degrees warmer
From Bishop Pass, its a 6.6 mile hike through Dusy Basin and down to Leconte Canyon. I was surprised at how much elevation we dropped as we went from just under 12,000ft to 8,700ft. We both know that those switchbacks were going to be very demanding on the way back.
heading down Bishop Pass
Upper Dusy Basin
looks like they also had a problem with condensation
We decided to take out the sleeping bags to dry about 2 miles after Bishop Pass. I went down to this small tarn to fill up on water and take a few pictures.
lower Dusy Basin- almost to the beginning of the switchbacks
view of Leconte Canyon- the trail switchbacks to the bottom of the canyon in 3 miles
bottom of Leconte Canyon after hiking down through a lush green forest with breathtaking views, temp in the canyon was a very pleasant 70 F. from the canyon its an easy and scenic 7 mile hike up the JMT to Muir Pass (11,955 ft). The upper portion of the pass is very interesting. Theres a lake at just about every turn in the trail.
Muir Pass- I munched on some crackers for some quick energy as we talked to a group that was carrying what looked like 60lb packs. They said that they were doing the North-South lake loop in a week and wanted to make the most of it, so they were carrying things such as tennis rackets and balls, soccer balls, and guitars. We passed 3 other guys who asked where we were headed to. When we said "Mt. Goddard," their mouths dropped and they strongly warned us against trying the summit Mt. Goddard that day. That got us thinking, but the thought vanished as soon as the dark face of Mt. Goddard popped over a ridge and came into plain sight.
From Muir Pass, we hiked a little over 2 miles to the far east side of Wanda Lake and dropped our packs at a sandy spot.
Wanda lake is the farthest lake in the picture. The east side is the rightmost side of the lake.
We quickly had a bite to eat, put the packs up on a rock so that marmots wouldn't get to them, and set up the bivys to that they would be ready to crawl into when we got back. We each brought a water bottle and a few energy bars for the last portion up to the summit, which was ~6 miles RT consisting of all X-country routefinding and class 3 scrambling. We left camp at 3:40pm.
From camp, a 300ft ridge obscured our view of Goddard. We crawled onto the top of the ridge and got a view of the canyon we had to descend to get the the base of Goddard. It looked like a big canyon with a 700ft drop. We descended about 300ft and checked the time. It was 4:10. We sat down and considered our options. The mountain still looked far away. There was the thought of going back to camp and coming back to summit the next morning, but if we did that, we wouldn't be able to hike out in time. We tried to figure out the elevation gain to the summit in order to get a better scale. I recognized the shape of the highest lake in the valley from Google Earth and knew that it was at about 11,200ft. We checked the map to confirm. The area we would drop down looked like it was 200ft higher than the lake. The summit of Goddard was just over 13,500ft, so the elevation gain had to be around 2,100ft from the valley (I later found out it was 2,400ft). We decided that wasnt too bad and gave it a go. We estimated summiting at around 7pm and getting back to camp at around 11. I didnt care if it got dark. The route was not technically difficult (all class 2) as long as we got back to the base of the mountain (class 2-3) before dark. Tommey said he would rather crawl back to camp in pitch black rather than hiking back the next day with the thought of failure. I had the exact same thoughts. This was probably a classic example of some of the last thoughts of people who had died trying to summit Everest too late in the day, but this was not Everest, it was Goddard.
view of the valley as we descended the ridge
The traverse to the base of the mountain turned out the be shorter than we thought. We arrived at the base of the mountain at 4:30, 20 minutes faster than predicted. The obvious ridge we were supposed to scramble up stood out like a monster. We sloshed through a permanent snowfield and started up the ridge. After climbing about 60 ft, we were confused as the route steepened to an almost vertical grade without any solid holds (like what a class 3 should be), but consisting of a series of slippery nubs, carved smooth by water trickling down from snowmelt. This felt like a low class 5, something we surely wouldnt be able to get down at night without a rope. We were both sure that we were supposed to take the ridge, seeing several trip reports with a clear line drawn. We descended back to the snowfield and decided to try another section further down the ridge. That section turned out to be more of the same. We were really getting dismayed. I looked west to where the ridge ended and saw what looked like a big scree field heading up the mountain. We decided that the ridge was not feasible under the amount of daylight we had. We could get up, but not down. When we got to the scree, we saw that it went up and hit a notch. What was on the other side of the notch could not be seen as it was hidden by more hills of scree. It was 5:00. We decided to climb to the notch. It couldnt hurt. We both decided that if the route at the end of the scree was undoable, we would turn back. Tommey let out a loud scream of joy upon reaching the top. We could see the obvious route. In another few hundred feet, a clear walkpath stretched from the scree to access the ridge, which also looked straight forward, heading to another notch on the left of a small peak left of Goddard. We could recognize that notch from photos and our spirits soared.
Accessing the ridge turned out to be fairly easy. We gradually advanced up the ridge, working our way around and up a series of slabs. There were cairns here and there, but they kept misleading us. We used up about 20 minutes at a section trying to find a class 3 chute described in one of the trip reports.
climbing the ridge
After a few more slabs and small notches, we got to the easy walkline up to the notch (the one without snow at the end).
The view south from the notch was awesome! We decided to make a run for the summit even though it was already 6:00. The summit was in view. All we had to do was traverse sideways along the backside of the smaller peak between us and Goddard, drop 250ft onto a saddle, and walk up the remaining ~700 ft of talus slope to the summit.
at the saddle- looking up at the remaining ~700ft talus slope
south from the saddle
Polemonium eximium (sky pilot flower)
The talus slope was nothing tricky, just one foot in front of the other. We summited just after 7, a bulls eye on our estimated time.
looking NW
south
Tommey on the summit
me
We signed the register, took a few pictures, high fived, and enjoyed the views for a few more minutes before descending around 7:20. The views were out of this world, and I wished there was more time to spend.
descending down the scree
The notch is on the other side of that peak further down the ridge. I decided I didnt want to traverse back on the side of the peak slipping and sliding and decided to just go over it. It looked no more than 400ft gain.
view south from the top of the small peak
back at the notch- we decided that if we were to get below the class 3 chutes before usable light ran out, we were golden for the rest of the way. The class 2-3 slabs and scree below would be fairly easy with flashlights.
Mt. Mendel (left) and flat topped Mt. Darwin (right) looking mighty
on the ridge, about 200 ft above the class 3 chutes
We got down the chutes right as the sun went down, leaving us with about 30 minutes of usable light to work our way down the slabs. We took out flashlights at the scree about 200ft above the base of the mountain and dropped down. All that was left was hiking across the valley, over the ridge that separated the valley from Wanda Lake, and back to camp. Getting across the valley was fairly simple. The only thing we had to watch out for was the many rivers that flowed from the permanent snowfield above. We got back to the ridge at around 10 and started climbing. The direction felt a little off. We seemed to be going straight up the side of the ridge, not traversing left like we were supposed to. Whenever we would try to go left, the rocks would cliff out. We reasoned that we were probably going the right way but the terrain and darkness was throwing off our sense of direction. Finally, we came over the top of the ridge and descended the other side. A vague shape of a lake came into view, barely recognizable in the darkness. Something didn't feel right. The terrain was supposed to be sandy where the campsite was, not rocky. I thought we mightve gone too far east and came out on another lake further down the canyon. Getting back would mean locating the JMT and hiking another half mile back uphill. We looked around for the JMT but couldnt find it. The map showed that it was right along the west side of the lake where we were standing. Suddenly, Tommey had an idea. If our sense of direction was correct and we were not going left enough up the ridge, we must be on the opposite side of Wanda Lake. There was a little island about 500ft away that matched an island on the map. Perfect. The map indicated that the camp was another 0.75 miles away, so we went a little ways back up the ridge and traversed northeast. Sure enough, as soon as we descended, the bivys came into view. It was just after 11pm. We laid down and fell asleep in a matter of minutes.
We woke up just after 4am, refreshed from sleep. The night was warm and pleasant in the high 30s, much better that the previous night below Bishop Pass. The crescent moon rose over Mt. Darwin as we cooked breakfast and prepared for the long hike out. We relaxed until 6am and started hiking. The sunrise at Wanda lake was awesome.
back at Muir pass
The hike down Leconte Canyon from Muir pass was very nice, but the thought of the 3,400ft gain switchbacks up to Bishop Pass awaiting us kept us from running and using up all our energy.
It turned out that the switchbacks wernt too bad. The only thing was the heat. Both of us stopped several times to splash our faces in rivers that ran down the pass.
We finally came to a lake at lower Dusy Basin and jumped in to cool off. It was the best feeling ever.
We got up to Bishop pass just after 1pm. All that was left was an easy 6 mile hike back down to the trailhead with some small hills on the way.
Mt. Goode
