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All Original Content © Copyright 2003 W.S. Fraser All Rights Reserved. Maps printed under extended license from TOPO! National Geographic Holdings (www.topo.com ) © Copyright 2001 National Geopgraphic Holdings
There are three basins that are adjacent to each other on the border between the John Muir Wilderness and Kings Canyon National Park in California's Sierra Nevada. They are bordered on the east by the 11,000' LeConte Divide and on the west by the Kings River Canyon and Post Corral Creek. Red Mountain Basin is the northernmost of the basins. The southernmost is Blackcap Basin. Bench Valley is located between the previously mentioned two.
The only trail crossing of the LeConte Divide into Goddard Canyon in this area is, appropriately named, Hell-For-Sure Pass. In addition, there are a number of documented cross-country passes, Confusion Pass , Valor Pass and Gunsight Pass being among them. This year I decided to look for an alternate cross-country route from Red Mountain Basin to Bench Valley via Goddard Canyon. In the process, I explored two side canyons that drain into Goddard Canyon from the west side. Both of the crossings that I found should only be attempted by experienced cross-country hikers with excellent balance and route finding skills.
The first pass, which I call Arctic Pass, leads from Red Mountain Basin to Goddard Canyon from the vicinity of Arctic Lake just south of Hell-For-Sure Pass. While camped in Red Mountain Basin, I scouted routes over the divide above Arctic Lake without a pack before returning and making the actual crossing.
There are three notches above Arctic Lake. The middle notch does not lead to a useable route down the east side. The route up to the northernmost notch is the more difficult and happens, of course, to be the one that I chose to climb during the scouting trip. It would be more difficult with a pack but not impossible. I contoured around the west and north shores above Horseshoe Lake and the southeast shore of Hell-For-Sure Lake, passing along the northern edge of the largest tarn south of HFS Lake and climbed the obvious rock cleft just south of it over sedge and scree covered steps. An occasional hand hold was required . About three quarters of the way up, at about the 11,200' level, as I was pulling myself over a large boulder, I looked up to my left and, only ten feet away, up popped the prettiest little gold colored weasel with a black tipped tail. It looked at me for a moment as if to say, "what the heck are you doing here" and then was gone; probably to continue its' hunt for Conies.
At the top of the cleft , a series of shallow gullies or swales, filled with a mixture of granite and metamorphic scree and grass with a few wildflowers , connect it and the other two notches. The top of this northernmost notch contains a glacial tarn that seems to contain water all year around . Descent from this notch to the east would require a rather uncontrolled steep descent down a 200 foot scree slope. Since I prefer more controlled , calculated steps, even if they have a little more exposure, I looked at the southernmost notch. Descent from it to the east was over a mixture of metamorphic and granite ledges. After a snack and taking numerous pictures, I returned westward from this notch decending a long, wide, sand and grass slope to the cliffs just above and to the east of Arctic Lake. From there is was easy to move north via granite slabs to my starting point near the pond southeast of Hell-Fore-Sure Lake.
Two days later, I returned with my pack and, after negotiating the interconnecting sandy gullies around the north side of Horseshoe Lake, took only a half hour to climb from the pond to the southernmost notch above Arctic Lake. (Actually, there is another notch farther south above the southeast corner of Arctic Lake but it looked much steeper and more hazardous due to falling rock). I had a snack next to the tarn in the north notch amongst miniature Lupine and Rydberg's Penstemon and refilled my water bottle. Descent eastward, down the first 200 feet required care and entailed some exposure due to the sharp edged metamorphic plates. A slip here would result in major injuries due to the extremely sharp exposed edges of the rock. At the base of this first steep descent one has access to either of two, unnamed, canyons containing small lakes and creeks. I moved to the southern canyon of the two. The area is a little confusing as the topo lines are jumbled because of a series of granite outcrops interspersed with long, wide sloping gullies, some of which end in cliffs. I moved eastward and followed the creek, fed by a spring at the 11,000' level, down a long curving swale to the 10,600' contour where the creek dropped into the lower part of the canyon. I had lunch and changed to dry socks there in the most beautiful, lush, meadow next to the creek. . The coyotes seemed to like the area too as they had dug up the meadow in a number of areas hunting for varmits or some other tidbit
Descent to the lower lake in the side canyon on the east side of the divide directly east of Arctic Lake entailed moving westward where the wider topo lines appear on the map and descending grassy steps, to a meadow filled valley interspersed with areas of scree. Staying to the right side of the valley at the lower end, I moved down a gully south of the creek as the creek dropped rather steeply through a narrow gorge just above the Hell-for-Sure Pass trail at the 10,300' level. I continued south on the HFS Pass trail for about 1/2 mile until the trail topped a long, fairly steep, uphill swale or gully and then leveled off. I left the trail at this point to continue my cross country explorations.
Moving west over a low, sandy hill, I climbed a narrow, grass-filled gully. The west wall of Goddard Canyon, here, consists of a series of meadow-filled benches connected by this steep, narrow gully. This is apparent on the Mt.Henry 7.5 minute series topo map. The object was to get high enough to avoid the very steep drop of the creek in the adjacent feeder canyon. If one succeeded, which I did not, one could descend a long grassy slope into the upper part of the canyon where the lower lakes are situated. Thinking I was too high and seeing some deer running along a bench below me, I went down a steep, willow filled chute only to find myself having to follow the creek upward.
This turned out to be negotiable because it was bordered by heavy grass, scree and sedges but it was steep and contained lots of willows. At around 5:00 in the evening, after a long day, this mistake was not appreciated. The creek tumbled down the mountainside amidst clumps of yellow Monkey flowers and the beauty soon made me forget my exertion. |
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The next day was smoky but otherwise cloudless and bright. I climbed about 500 feet on the south side of the creek that empties the upper lake at the head of the canyon. There was a fair amount of exposure in some spots. I stopped at a small bench below a huge moraine just below the upper lake for a snack . The next hour was spent trying to reconcile the map with what I saw above me. I almost turned back to go down to Goddard Canyon and over Gunsight Pass to the south since I had been over it before. I just couldn't see the ledges that the map seemed to say were there. I decided to leave my pack and climb the lower, obvious, grassy chutes to the north of my position to see if there was a way up the granite wall at the top of the divide. I found, to my delight, that the map was correct and what looked like a vertical, impassable wall was separated by grassy scree slopes that led to a notch at the top filled with quartz outcrops. I looked down on the hanging valley above Wahoo and Holster Lakes in Bench Valley. I quickly went down and retrieved my pack, climbed to the top of the divide, and descended easily to the valley over granite slabs. After lunch along the creek in the upper valley, the rest of the day consisted of visiting and photographing the lakes in Bench Valley; Bullet,Holster, Wahoo, Six Shooter, Schoolmarm, Crabtree, Twin Bucks, Roman Four, and Horsehead Lakes. As the sun was getting low I met two young men who had come across the Divide from Davis Lake headed for the Kings River Trail. We exchanged information and they continued on their way. I made camp for the night at my favorite elevation at Filly Lake and took a wonderful, not-too-warm, shower before sitting down to a great Mt.House Spaghetti dinner.
Unfortunately, the next morning my knee had blown up like a balloon. I couldn't make the 400 foot descent to see Lone Doe Lake or the 500 foot climb to Little Joe Lake (Image courtesy of Bill Finch-http://www.sierrahiker.com/) but I did manage to see the McGuire Lakes and Guest Lake on my rather painful descent from Bench Valley to the Kings River. Along the Kings River(Riverside Camp) I soaked my knee, pumped myself full of Ibuprofen and camped for the night. The next day I decided to walk out to the trailhead at Courtright Reservoir since, although it was sore and swollen, my knee still worked and I wasn't sure how long that would last. I left "Riverside camp" along the Kings River at 7:15 in the morning, hoping to catch my companion before he left the crossing at Post Corral Creek. We had parted in Red Mountain Basin three days earlier with Ralph planning on taking the Meadowbrook Trail down to the Kings River with a leisurely return to the trailhead at Courtright Reservoir while I began my cross-country explorations. I reached Post Corral Creek at 9:20 AM. I had seen Ralph's recent boot prints amoung the myriad of others on the trail but could not tell whether he had passed that way that day or the day before. After a snack and some picture-taking along the creek, I pushed on. Arriving at the trailhead at 2:00 PM, I found that Ralph had a delicious, cold, glass of iced tea for me. We visited for awhile before heading down to Camp Edison at Shaver Lake for a hot shower, a much appreciated meal in a local restaurant and a luxurious night in Ralph's camper.
The next day I reluctantly boarded the northbound Amtrak train in Merced and headed home, while Ralph was forunate enough to be able to return to the Sierras for another week of solitude.
