EISPIRATEN

I'm way behind on writing about stuff, this was my trip in the middle of August. It was the second time my friend had ever been backpacking and the first with her own gear.

Warmup
While sitting up late on Saturday night I saw a FB post on the JMT group, a couple people were in Lancaster looking for a ride to the Olancha Pass trail. Since I was heading that way I volunteered some space and time. Sunday I left home as planned and stopped at the Comfort Inn to meet the two riders, turned out they are from Germany and planning to spend their last six weeks here backpacking along the PCT. It was a hot day and the little bit of shade at the trailhead was welcome, as their permit was for the following day. I told them it would probably be OK to head out in the late afternoon and get a few miles done on the trail as I would not expect to see any backcountry rangers at that time. From there I continued my drove north, meeting my friend Diane at the Mammoth Creek Inn. After settling in and going over some gear we walked across the street to Salsa's Taqueria for dinner.


Day 1
We walked over to Carl’s Jr for breakfast before driving up to the Lodge where we would park for the week. From there we caught two buses which left us at Horseshoe Lake, near the beginning of the Mammoth Pass route.After a photo we started on the hot uphill section, it was nice to get into the woods shortly before reaching McLeod Lake. From there we continued on a trail toward Red Cones, finally stopping near those landmarks for a break and some map-reading. Turned out we had missed the actual Mammoth Pass trail and had to take a different route toward Red’s Meadow. It was a little longer and certainly warmer although mostly downhill. Since the shuttle wasn’t running not very many people were hanging around so we didn’t either. We did take advantage of this opportunity to go visit Rainbow Falls, leaving our packs at cutoff trail junction with the JMT. Walking back, we loaded up once again and took the trail over the top of Devils’ Postpile. Visiting both of these places was really cool since we were the only people there. Most photos have another 40 people in them, ours only had the locations and each other. Our day continued up and up toward Minaret Creek and my friend was really starting to drag here. It was warm and uphill and late in the day, and we had to do a partial wet-feet crossing as the old log is no longer spanning the water. I moved on ahead to find a campsite and told DL to stop for some food. I got set up and then ran back toward the creek so that I could get some water for the night and next morning. We didn’t have much dinner that night and both retired to our tents pretty early.

Starting point, already pretty late in the day for this.
McLeod Lake.
One of the Red Cones ahead of me. Somewhere around here I realized we were not on the intended trail.
Rainbow Falls.
Devil's Postpile.
Minaret Creek in the very late afternoon.

Day 2
I got up at first light and scouted around our campsite for a while, learning that I didn’t have to go half a mile back to the creek for water as there was a stream nearby that was hidden in the late afternoon shadows. After a leisurely breakfast we packed up and hit the trail to our planned lunch spot at Rosalie Lake, one of my favorite spots on the JMT. This was more uphill, so I suggested we take a shade break near the Trinity Lakes, and 15 minutes of that was exactly what was needed. Rosalie was a good chance to go wading in the frigid water which served as my method of washing my clothes during the week. A mile later we turned off on the Shadow Creek trail toward Lake Ediza, which was our camp location for this night. Walking up Shadow Creek was definitely a highlight of the entire trip, it has a mixture of slow meandering sections interspersed with rushing falls. And Ediza was definitely worth a visit! It was hard to find a camp site as the only flat ground in sight was an island in the lake. The brisk wind was a deterrent for me, so we set up on some tundra, betting that we wouldn’t have a ranger visit overnight. For the record, we were not the first to use this particular spot as the grass was pretty trampled.


Campsite in the morning
Short walk to this nice break spot
Rosalie Lake, one of my favorite places on the JMT
Diane crossing the Shadow Creek bridge, uphill for a few miles after this
Following along Shadow Creek for a while
Meadow before reaching Ediza Lake
Ediza Lake backdrop

Ran out of photo space....


Day 3
Since we camped on grass we both had a lot of condensation in the morning, it was worse for me since I was using the single-wall Protrail instead of the Notch. Thankfully I brought along a Swedish sponge to wipe down the tent and then we waited a long time for the sun to show up, which also let us watch the sunrise on the high ridgeline behind us. After a lot of sitting around, we headed back down next to Shadow Creek before turning north at the JMT junction. By this time it was hot out and Diane was slowing down a bit, then the uphill climb made for an even longer trek. I stopped and waited for a while and when she caught up I took her stove, chair, tent and sleeping pad to lighten the load. According to the map we were following a stream, unfortunately all the water crossings were pretty dry. As I was getting pretty low on water before the last climb I stopped and pulled some really dirty liquid from some pools near the trail. I filtered the bugs out by pouring it through my new bandanna before running it through the Sawyer filter. I got enough to make the next couple miles to Garnet Lake, where we took a very long food break. After that the walk to Thousand Island Lake was easy enough, aided by some great scenery featuring some of the few clouds we saw all week. It took a little while to find campsites, as most of the popular spots are now closed for restoration. Walking further from the lake I found a spot with some nice flat rocks for lake-watching and we sat there for a few hours until past sunset.

Waiting for stuff to dry in the early morning, a little alpenglow on the high peaks behind
Leaving Ediza Lake
Long hot walk up this valley, around here I picked up the skunky water
Garnet Lake from the outflow bridge, we sat underneath it for our food break
Emerald Lake
Crossing over to Thousand Island Lake
Campsite in the last rays of sunshine
Day 4
I got up early enough to watch the sunrise and see the upper parts of Banner Peak and the surrounding mountains turn pink and orange in the morning light. I wandered down to the lake so I could gather water for breakfast and the first part of the trail today, filling up with 3L and then filtering back at the campsite. With a shorter and easier day scheduled we spent some time lounging around (you may be noticing a trend here) before finally departing this popular location. Diane packed all of her equipment for this walk and we had a little bit of slow uphill before cresting a high point before the Clark lakes. This was my preferred detour, it gave us a chance to visit more marsh-ringed water and also crest Agnew Pass. We took a really long break at the largest of the Clarks, enough to have lunch, filter more water and also wade around to wash clothes again. A barely noticeable elevation gain led to Agnew Pass, if not for the sign we would not have been aware of that landmark. From there I knew it was downhill the rest of the way to our final destination. This is part of the Pacific Crest Trail, and the location on the high side of the valley made for some great views along the way. I kept my eye open for campsites as I had not found any in the multitude of trip reports I read before this journey. Earlier than planned we found a great spot under some trees with a steep slope on the other side, which was just perfect for watching the sunset beyond Banner Peak.

Sunrise at Thousand Island Lake
One of the Clark Lakes, no flow in or out so I would call this a tarn
We stopped here for a long lunch break, not too many miles on the schedule today
Agnew Pass just ahead
Our route looking south on the Pacific Crest Trail
Sunset view of Mammoth Mountain at our last campsite, Minarets were across the valley from us Day 5
This was another fine morning of sunrise-watching as I sat out on the rocks beyond our tree-covered tents. We were a bit low on water so I missed out on the hot chocolate, fortunately it was warm in the sun. This was the earliest morning we had all week, knowing that we would be able to eat some food prepared by someone else was a pretty good motivator. After about a mile of walking we came across some water flowing across the trail so I took advantage of that and refilled my bottle. We actually crossed water a few more times and one of my favorite memories here is that of refilling every time we did so. A short four miles later we could hear the sounds of chain saws, crews were working in the Agnew Meadows area. As we got closer, the attraction of real bathrooms led us to walk a little faster and soon enough we were amongst the buildings in the area. Walking out the road we saw the bus dropping off passengers so I started running which must have been an experience for those folks. We were lucky that a few of them hailed the driver and told him to wait, which saved us at least 30 minutes of waiting around. With the ride back to the Mammoth Lodge ski area this trip officially ended, although we capped it off with drinks and lunch at Distant Brewing.

Total for the week was somewhere around 40 miles, my navigation error on the first day added about two miles to the original plan.

Thanks for the report and photos! Did you bring an extra big pack anticipating having to carry your friend's gear?

Beautiful pics. I'm so jealous. I haven't made any trips to the Sierras this year. I always wanted to go to the Devil's Postpile

Sean wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 5:46 pm Thanks for the report and photos! Did you bring an extra big pack anticipating having to carry your friend's gear?

I brought my regular pack. Fortunately it's never full so I had room to stuff 5-6 pounds of her gear for half the day.

Nice trip and photos. Were you on top of the Postpile? I've been there once, but it looks like you were on top of it.

Amazing lake shots. Great job leading a big trip.

tekewin wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 4:47 pm Nice trip and photos. Were you on top of the Postpile? I've been there once, but it looks like you were on top of it.

Amazing lake shots. Great job leading a big trip.

Yes, we walked over the top of the Postpile. The trail from Rainbow Falls goes that way.