A couple weeks after returning from our previous Sierra trip and some boring rehab on my back, we got antsy to get back out. We were planning to start our trip over Labor Day weekend, but the reality of the prospect of roads crammed over capacity dissuaded us from this plan at the last moment.
We spent the time poring over our two new guidebooks:
- Exploring Eastern Sierra Canyons – Sonora Pass to Pine Creek
- Exploring Eastern Sierra Canyons – Bishop to Lone Pine
We thought we were Eastern Sierra veterans, but after reading these two guides, we’ve come to realize we haven’t even begun to explore. The author loves the Sierra – her descriptions of the hikes are thorough and compelling. There may be a few too many superlatives in her writing for some (meaning, too many for me…), but I choose to look past that to the love and enthusiasm. Buy the books – you won’t be sorry.
Chocolate Lakes / Chocolate Peak
For our warm up hike, we picked a route in the South Fork of Bishop Canyon. I have been on the main trial in the south fork at least half a dozen times, but was always headed for Bishop Pass and beyond, and had not done any exploring of the side drainages. It turned out to be a nice low key hike with great scenery. There is an easy scramble up to Chocolate Peak with outstanding views. We chose a more direct path coming back from the peak with a 200-300 foot descent over some very loose scree, but it wasn’t that bad. This lead us to a clear animal trail (we hope it was a bighorn sheep trail; the droppings were about right) and, figuring that animals don’t want to waste energy any more than we do, we chose to follow the animal trial back to the Chocolate Lakes trail.
PICTURES from Chocolate Lakes hike
In the guidebook, we learned of a nearby peak called Cloudripper, highest peak in the Inconsolable Range. With a name like Cloudripper, how could we not want to climb it? On the way in to Chocolate Lakes, we talked to a couple of other hikers and learned that one of them had already climbed Cloudripper. She told us they had approached the climb from Green Lake. Later, looking at the topo map, it looked like an approach from Thunder and Lightning Lake might work well too, but we chose to go with the beta from the hiker.
Brown Lake / Green Lake / Cloudripper
We got an early start and easily found the “pipeline trail” described in the guidebook that would save us 500 feet of elevation gain and loss. It was kind of an early morning balance check; the pipeline goes over ground where if you fell off, you could easily turn or break an ankle – this really helps with your focus and concentration.
After a mile of pipelining, we found the main trail and headed on up. Easy hiking to Brown Lake, which was so tranquil it made a great reflecting pool. After a snack we headed on up to Green Lake, which is sited in a truly beautiful setting.
Map and compass gave us our heading to Cloudripper and after circumventing a marshy meadow we were at the bottom of our climb. Talus. Much talus. Turned out to be 2500 feet or so of talus.
We arrived at a saddle and, looking over the edge into the South Fork Bishop Creek drainage, quickly got oriented. We were looking down on Chocolate peak and off to our left was another big pile of talus that we had to get over to get closer to Cloudripper. We traversed to the left, quickly found that there was a cliff face on the other side of the talus heap so we had no choice but to go up and over. Arriving at the top, we discovered that – we were going to come up short. We didn’t have enough daylight left to make it to Cloudripper and back to the trail head, and the prospect of doing the pipeline walk with headlamps and possibly dew – nah.
We climbed down off the peak (which we later found was unofficially named Vagabond Peak, 13,374′) and started looking for a way to avoid the talus downclimb. We found the bypass at the expense of probably a couple more miles of distance, but it was well worth it to avoid the talus.
PICTURES from Cloudripper attempt
I imagine we’ll return; the whole “Cloudripper / Inconsolable Range” thing is too compelling; we may choose to do it as an overnighter from Thunder and Lightning lake…
Lundy Canyon
We read up on Lundy Canyon in our guidebook – beaver works, giant aspens, several sets of pretty cascades, moderate hiking until you’re close to the upper cascade – what’s not to love. Heading up the trail – “Did you lock the truck?” – “I don’t remember…” – this happens all the time. Things I do on autopilot, without thinking, I can’t remember doing. Back at the truck (it was locked after all), there were a few clouds visible upcanyon, and, remembering discussions with Mat about late afternoon Sierra thunderstorms, I grabbed our raincoats. This turned out to be a good thing.
Heading up canyon, we stopped to see the beaver dams, beaver lodges, cascades, flowers, giant aspens – all the good stuff. We hadn’t actually planned on getting to the upper cascades, but just kept hiking and soon we were on the slate scree approaching the bottom of the upper cascade. The way it works is, if you’re going to get weathered, it will happen when you’re as far from the trailhead as possible. Sure enough, it started to rain, so we cut over to get a look at the water, and while we were taking pictures, it started to hail as well.
Thinking of all that nice slate scree getting wet and slippery (I know, wah wah wah) we turned around and headed back. It soon stopped raining and we took our time making our way down canyon, stopping at spots we’d bypassed on the way up. Somewhere about the second lake upcanyon, it started sprinkling; Carol asked if I wanted my raincoat – “No, not unless it gets worse than this.” I know intellectually I can’t influence the weather, but it sure seems like every time I say something like that, we’re in for it.
The skies soon opened up, plenty of rain and then the hail started. It was really pretty; we were dressed pretty well for it (aside from my cotton shorts; once cotton gets wet it will dry about two weeks from never, “cotton kills”) so we were enjoying ourselves and the benefits of carrying waterproof cameras. At one point, though, in the open in hard hail, I discovered that a thin sheet of nylon fabric on my poor defoliated pate was insufficient protection from the stones, so I was hiking with my arms over my head to protect it.
Back at the truck, we put on dry clothes and headed out to the Mono basin to camp. A thoroughly enjoyable outing, highly recommended, especially if you can arrange for the weather we had – ha.