Desolation Wilderness -Trip Report & Les sons

“Both Obi Wan & Freedom have brief reports on our previous thread, I thought another with some "lessons learned" might be helpful for future trek planning.

Our plan was to hike thru a chunk of Desolation Wilderness from Echo Lakes to Eagle Falls over a two day period. Each day's hike was to be about 8+ miles according to the maps & TOPO Elevation profiles.

Friday night we managed to hook up at the campground, and at Obi's suggestion went out for pizza & beer...very GOOD beer. Saturday AM got a reasonably early start, dropped off a couple cars at Eagle Falls & drove around to Echo TH. Arrived there by about 9:00, but since Wanderer Jr. left his water bottle in the car at the top of the hill, we missed the first ferry. Oh Well. Caught the second, and we were on the trail by about 9:40. Beginning elevation was about 7,400 ft.

There were 8 of us in total, 5 adults & 3 14 yo scouts from my troop. Since we old-timers are posessed of more common sense & appreciation of the beauty, and also don't have the stamina or desire to race ahead of 14 yo males, one of the boys usually led. The first 2 miles we gained about 900 ft. in elevation. Trails in Desolation near the trailheads are usually very well marked and easy to follow, but as you go deeper into the wilderness they can become a little more deceptive. A lot of the trails go thru granite scree, and the trail can become pretty hard to pick out. A second concern was that the further back into the wilderness we got, the more we encountered snowfields covering the trail. In some cases we could follow footprints of earlier hikers, but in some cases we had to forge ahead as best as we could, "guessing" where the trail was under the snow. The first lesson learned is not to just blindly follow the leader in a situation like ours. You guessed it - near the end of Aloha Lake, prolly about 4 miles in, we got off-trail. Once we realized this, the boys and Tommy spread out to see if we could bushwhack over to the real trail (which we could see), or, whether we should backtrack to Aloha & re-join the trail there. After some debate, we decided to play it safe & return to the trail. This little diversion prolly cost us about 45 minutes to an hour. Lessons learned...someone always has to assume the trek leader position, and the entire group has to stick together, making the decision that is easiest for all.

The rest of Saturday was somewhat uneventful, although we ended up crossing more snowfields than we had anticipated. After a lot of up, down, up, down we finally came to the last mile - we were now back down at 7,600 ft., but had to climb uphill about 800 ft. to our destination, Gilmore Lake. By this time, we were all pretty well bushed, and the last climb up was pretty tough. We arrived at Gilmore at about 6:30, making it about a 9 hour trail day. Some immediately put up a tent & took a quick nap, some of us began cooking right away, and I think all were in tent or bivy sack by about 8:30. We were bushed!

Day two was the real adventure. We hiked down a short way from Gilmore Lake to hit the trail, this part of our route is on the PCT. Since we were already up at 8400', we "only" had to climb up to a little over 9400 to cross Dick's Pass, the highest point on our proposed trail. After crossing Dick's Pass, we would be going downhill for the next 5.5 miles, ending at 6400 ft at Eagle Falls. Another lesson we all know but can easily forget... elevation change is elevation change, whether it's up or down it takes longer than level trail.

Well, we found the trail marker at Dick's Pass OK, but... there are no carved indications of anything on this marker! It's the only one I've ever seen in Desolation with no arrows to next destinations! We quickly looked around at our situation...it was about 10:30 by now, and we were way too far ahead to return back out at Echo, we would have to forge ahead with our original plan. But, with no direction on the trail marker, and no way to determine visually where we were (deep snowfields all around us at that elevation), we relied upon map & compass to pick our route. Obi had programmed about 30 waypoints into his GPS unit, but we also knew that the trail did some twists & turns in the area we were in. Another lesson reminder...we all MUST be comfortable navigating by topo map / compass, and have a great deal of confidence in our ability. Heading out across that snowfield, that many miles from anything and at that elevation, with no trail in sight, was a little daunting. As we started across the field, we found ourselves "postholing" quite often, sometimes going in almost up to our waist. Climbing out of posthole after posthole is VERY tiring, and we had to travel about a mile across the field. Finally after about an hour (a guess) we picked up signs of the trail. Whew!

After that "it was downhill all the way" har har. We all ended up with wet feet from the snow in our boots from our postholiing across the snowfields, but managed the next 5 - 6 miles down to Tahoe.

This trip truly was one of those where the old Boy Scout motto - "Be Prepared", came in handy. If we'd forgotten some of the basics (maps, etc) we might still be up there. As it was, we ended up enjoying some spectacular scenery, and have some experiences I doubt any will forget for awhile!”

“Wanderer, that sounds like a good trip. Nothing like a little snow to test your navigational skills...and fortitude (postholing sucks!)”

“Your trip with all the elevation changes makes me jealous, wanderer. However, we have to make the best of the location that we live in, right? sounds like it was an awesome trip and many lessons learned, as well! Thanks for sharing!”

“Gee, Wanderer, you make it seem like so much work. All's I remember from the trip is the breathtaking views of Half Moon Lake, Suzie, Aloha et.al., sometimes several of them at once from a wind-swept pass high above the valley floor.

Only now are my calves complaining and my lips feel sunburnt. Maybe "downhill all the way" took some effort after all...”

“Tommy, my calves are complaing a bit as well...and my lower back.

Obi, everyone got their butt kicked a bit...

Freedom, glad to hear Keeter dog's OK. She's quite a trooper!

It was great hiking with y'all!”

“Damn! Sounds like a great trip! Sorry I missed it. How were the crowds? Did you guys do any glissading?”

“A fair # of people at both trailheads as one might expect, but once we got in a few miles we didn't see too many hikers, especially considering it was Mem day weekend. At Gilmore Lake Sat night there were two other tents, but we hardly saw their owners. Sunday we didn't see anyone until after we had slogged thru the snowfields at Dick's pass, then we saw some coming up from the other direction. I wanted to charge them some $$ for our trailblazing efforts since they could follow our footprints in reverse, but the other turkeys in our group wanted to be nice. LOL”

“We were in the same area last year just after 4th of July and had much the same kind of conditions. This must really be a low snow year! I remember looking for the trail on the north side of Dicks Pass and wondering where the blazes had gone. There were cairns, but they were a high snow route, not the actual trail. We also missed the turn near Aloha, though that one only took us a couple of minutes to figure out. Trouble with following footsteps in the snow is you assume the person ahead knows where they are going - often that isn't the case. But it is beautiful.”

“Ginny you're right on re following footsteps, I think that's what led us astray down at Aloha. I also expected that we wouldn't encounter as much snow as we did, given the fact that it is such a low snow year. I owe a little bit of an "oops" to Obi Wan Canoli, Freedom & Tommy for my mis-calculations. The trip was a lot more "challenging" that I originally thought it would be...”

“Postholing in the Desolation Wilderness sounds like I missed an adventure.
Trips that challenge you... tend to stand out in your memories!”

“Those were my thoughts too Wind Walker. I'm sure the trip will bring back fond memories, camp stories, etc., for many years.”

“Always acclimate to altitude - give yourself at least one day at altitude before setting off into the yonder.

Even two day hikes can be strenuous and hard on the body - especially OLD bodies. Take the time to stretch, train, hike, breathe...

Where possible, hike with someone who knows the trail, or the area you'll be in.

Watch for snow-filled cavities in the soles of your boots - stepping on scree, or wet granite, may cause you to lose your footing. Hike with at least a staff, if not two poles (ever seen a dog trip? THEY got 4 legs!)

Hiking never killed anyone. Even when you're beat, one foot in front of the other will, eventually, get you where you're going.

Where possible, hike with a friend. A group's even better. One of them might even pick you up when you're down.

Stop to see where you've been. Take a picture. Maybe two. Film's cheap. Memories priceless.

Trust experience.

Take your boots off at lunch break. Soak your feet - the coolness reduces swelling, comforts the ache.

Dry cantaloupe - it's YUM!

Drink chocolate pudding - ask Tommy!

Do it all over again...”

“Obi, you should number your recommendations & re-post as " Hiking Rules". They're priceless.”

“Great trip reports there guys, it sounds like you had a great time of it.
Thanks for sharing it with us.”

“thanks for sharing your experiences. How about some pics?

Postholing really sucks! It's can also be pretty dangerous. Take it from someone with bad knees.
No trail, sounds like my kind of trip. Can't wait till my next trip- 2 weeks-Courtright Reservoir to Mt.Goddard vicinity and back through Bench Valley and Red Mountain Basin!

Footsteps/cairns-Good point Ginny Never assume the last person knew where they were going or had the best route. I always get pissed off when I see ducks(that's the rock kind) off trail. Why would anyone spend all that effort and have the audacity to assume their route warranted marking!
Never been up into Desolation. I'd like to see it sometime.”

“Pics are on their way; I just emailed them to my friend who is maintaining a web page for me. Now, as soon as he gets around to it, you'll see *some* of what we went through.”

“Sounds like those scouts were very lucky to have some good leaders, and also lucky to gain some experience without getting hurt. I've been on rescue missions for scouts who didn't have such skilled and experienced leaders, and ended up in big trouble.”

“Wanderer, they were just musings, really. Thoughts which occurred as I recalled the events of our hike. Tommy - did you clone your film? I seem to recall you had only 4 shots left, half-way through the hike... you qwazy wabbit.

I am now trained and perpetually ready to attempt further vertical (+ & -) hikes. I am Hiker, hear me roar!”

“I just got my pics back, some of them are actually pretty good. What should I do with them? (be nice, here!)”

“let us see them”

“I'd like to see them but unfortunately don't know how to go about posting on the web.”