Inyo National Forest - North Lake to Pine Creek - July 10-14, 2019

Trip Logistics

• July 10 - 14, 2019
• August 25 - 31, 2019
• Inyo National Forest - North Lake to Pine Creek
• Total mileage - Approximately 27 miles not including day hikes

July Photos

August Photos

Route

2019 was a banner snow year and it resulted in lots of late season snowpack and a late backpacking season…sort of. I was leading a Sierra Club trip in August of 2019 and I wanted to scout the route before I took the group out.  I had done South Lake to North Lake a number of years before so I knew the Hopkins Basin area.  This route would be going from North Lake to Pine Creek…Pine Creek trailhead was an area I had no familiarity with.   In 2019 I ended up doing this route twice once in mid-July and again at the end of August as well as a short overnight to Muriel Lake from North Lake.  These were the only backpacking trips I did the summer of 2019 because of the snowpack and other commitments. Instead of writing separate reports for all of these trips I have just written one with the primary account being the July trip because it was so darn adventurous and have added in any other commentary from the other two trips.

For weeks leading up to this trip I was checking all the data I could about snow depth, water runoff and looking for personal accounts of folks who had been in the area.  While there had been some folks who had gone out of North Lake to Muriel Lake and the Humphrey Basin area I could not find anything beyond that.  Similarly I had read a couple of accounts of folks coming out of Pine Creek and up to Honeymoon Lake and the descriptions of the water crossings were spicy to say the least.  I thought about calling off the trip or maybe moving it but there were 5 of us including someone who was coming out from the east coast to scout her Sierra Club trip that would generally be in the same area.  I kept everyone abreast of the conditions and what I thought it would be like….I think I was pretty upfront about the fact there would be lots of snow and undoubtedly high and fast running water.  Everyone was good to go though and my backpacking friends Lorraine, Nora and Steve are always up for an adventure.  I already knew that Steve would be the water guinea big as the tallest in the group and I appreciated that he would be.  I recommended that everyone bring micro spikes for the trip, these ended up being a nice to have not a must have.  This was a 5 day trip for July and when I lead it for the Sierra Club it was a 7 day trip which allowed for a couple of layover days.

We started Day 1 of the trip by meeting up at my place in Mammoth and caravanning over to the Pine Creek trailhead.  We did talk to one hiker at the trailhead who had been up around Honeymoon Lake and said that the creek crossings were running fast and deep but that they were doable.  After parking we shuttled over to the North Lake trailhead out of Bishop.  As always there were lots of cars at the trailhead

East side of Piute Pass

but we were able to find a parking spot.  We started our hike late morning and made quick progress up to Piute Pass.  The area up to Piute was great… a little muddy but not much snow.  There were also some great wildflowers in bloom.  About 300 or so feet below the pass is where the snow began and the microspikes came out.  Since it was the afternoon by this time it was a bit slushy to the top but fine as many people had clearly gone over the pass.  Once we got on the pass we could see far out to the snowfields…oh yes…..snow snow and more snow as we had expected. We turned to our left….south…and where the trail should be to Muriel Lake.  Of course in this case there was no trail because everything was under snow and more specifically I should say snowy sunups…..my nemesis.   The walk over to Muriel was a bit of a slog…I had shorts on and would post hole every now and then cutting up my shins along the way.  We had no idea what to expect at the lake and figured worse case we’d camping on snow.  These also weren’t ideal conditions for finding group campsites and at this point we just wanted to find 5 little patches of snowless area to setup. We finally found something acceptable on the northeastern shore of the lake and at an acceptable distance to the water.  It was a beautiful cloudless sunset and we watched the alpenglow on Mount Muriel before we ate and ultimately went to bed in early because we were tuckered out.

When I came back to Muriel on my solo trip in early August I had a tiny patch of snow at the top of the pass and nothing else until the lake.  This time I slept on the north side of the lake and scouted for at least 1 1/2 hours for a good group campsite which I found quite difficult.  Most of the good group campsites were on the north end of the lake.  If you had a smaller group there were several options available.  Expect to see a lot of people camped at this lake.  In late August when I had the Sierra Club group we stayed on the north very close to my solo trip campsite location.  We were very close to a solo hiker and his camp but he was totally fine with us being so close by.  

The other deviation on the Sierra Club trip was the layover day we did.  I had a couple of options mapped out to do…there are so many things to explore in this area that it was hard to choose.   The two options were Lost Lakes which came recommended by a friend or Humphrey Lakes right below Mount Humphrey.  I decided to lead a day hike over to Humphrey Lakes.  We made our way from Muriel to the trail that goes up to Desolation Lake and headed to Lower Desolation lake where we took a nice break and refilled our water.  One of the highlights from this stretch of the trail was looking across Lower Desolation and seeing fields of purple….they were Lupine and it was beautiful. From this location we more or less followed the drainage to the largest of the Humphrey Lakes that sits at 11,800.  There is a steep drop into the lake and there was a lot of snow the southwest side of the lake.  We hung out for awhile chit chatting before heading back to Muriel….we did not go the same way back and made a nice loop out of it. 

Day 2 we will just call the water and suncup day of hell.  I knew today would be a hard day and the goal was to get across the creek that drains out of Merriam Lake in French Canyon.  I already knew it was quite likely we wouldn’t get to the desired location because the creek crossing would likely come at the end of the day and I suspected it was going to be running fast and deep. Steve led the charge out of camp and it

Headed north from Muriel Lake

was pretty clear where the trail was it became a matter at this point at choosing which suncups you wanted to venture on.   It was not fun and I did a good sized post hole out the gate bruising my leg.  I think it took us something like 2 hours to get from Muriel Lake to the trail….something that would normally take 30 minutes.  Once on the trail things were pretty easy going.  We met one family headed up the trail to go over the pass….they had gotten to the creek crossing at Hutchison's Meadow and decided it was too dangerous for all of them and turned back.  I had read a couple of other accounts from the two weeks prior and those folks chose to turn around as well.  One note is that after 11,000 feet when you head into the tree cover there were very few water sources so good to load up before heading down.  When we got to the Hutchinson’s area well it was no surprise…there are several braids of water to cross in this area and it was high and fast. I think we all thought it was doable but not going to be easy.  We left our boots on given the conditions and Steve of course took on the job of scouting crossings.  It took us over an hour to get through the crossings…..6 weeks later it took us about 10 minutes to walk through this area which included some people putting on river crossing shoes…what a difference a little time makes.  The water in some areas was well past our knees and Steve had to pull some of us up and out of the water….it was definitely not one of my more favorite water crossing.  When we finally got through all the water we were glad and trudged onwards.

For my Sierra Club trip I had planned to camp at Lower Honeymoon Lake which is on the south side of Piute Creek prior to Hutchinson’s Meadow and while I wanted to scout it out there was no way we were going to get across Piute Creek.  During the Sierra Club trip we ended up not going to this lake the group was tired, the mosquitos were fierce and we had to do a creek crossing and climb up quite aways so we ended up camping in French Canyon instead.

On the July trip we headed up French Canyon with the goal to be able to cross the creek draining out of Merriam Lake.  Well we got to the creek crossing and no surprise  it was a raging torrent.  Some of us were convinced we could find a way across but some of us, me included, said no way…it had already been a long difficult day and crossing dangerous creeks at the end of the day is never a good thing.  Good thing is there is plenty of great established camping right off the trail at the creek crossing.

On Day 3 we woke up and took a look at the creek crossing….it was still raging and very deep. My strong recommendation was to hike uphill towards Merriam Lake.  I figured at some point the water would become a bit more placid as we got to meadowy areas either that or we would hit snow which we could cross. Jane liked the idea of hiking up since her Sierra Club trip would be going to Merriam Lake so she could check out a bit of the trail.  So we headed up the trail towards Merriam….encountering no snow and sure enough we hit a lovely flat hanging garden area that we could easily cross through the creek.  While we didn’t go to the lake I’ve heard it’s amazing and would like to visit it at some point.  After we crossed the creek we scrambled down the use trail on the other the creek…I believe Roper speaks of this use trail…it’s not elegant but it gets you down to the trail.  From there we easily hiked up to the junction to French Basin.  We had no problem with creek crossings on the way there or crossing the creek up into French Basin.  We ran into snow around 10,800 feet but it was easy to hike through.  We decided to try and camp at Elba Lake and crossed the outlet to find some good camping spots surrounded by lots of patches of snow.  We did take a short walk up to Moon Lake just following the outlet between the two lakes….the snow wasn’t too bad.  I also decided that I would likely try to camp the group at this lake if I could find a good site in August.  I thought Moon Lake was slightly more scenic and had this amazing ridge to the west where you got a great view across the French Canyon.

On the Sierra Club trip the French Bench/Lakes area was a spot where we had a layover day.  We did have a nice group camp spot at Moon Lake….it was a bit out in the open but there was really nothing else good for a group in the area and thankfully no one else was camped there.  For the day hike the group split up - the boys went up towards Puppet pass and Puppet Lake  and the girls headed to the north cross country and we did a really great loop trip to L Lake, Steelhead Lake and the Petite Lakes.  The scenery was spectacular and off trail hiking really great.  Everyone had a lot of fun on the day hikes.  We also spent a very nice afternoon swimming and hanging out at Moon Lake.   This was a fabulous location to see the Milky Way the view from the ridge I mentioned was spectacular. 

Day 4 of the July trip would take us to Honeymoon Lake on the north side of Pine Creek Pass with a short excursion to Royce Lakes.  Royce Lakes has been a location high on my list to list for a long long time.  There is a very well known viewpoint from one of the Royce Lakes looking at Merriam Peak.  While we wouldn’t be camping in this location for the July trip I knew there would be too much snow it was on the

Hiking to Royce Lakes

list of destinations for the August trip and I wanted to try and find campsites and scout out the route.  We dropped our packs at the tarns at Pine Creek Pass.  I should mention it was also in this area that we ran into some trail runners out for the day running from Pine Creek trailhead to North Lake….uh yeah impressive. We started to head up to Royce Lakes and quickly ran into our favorite suncups but the traverse to the lake at 11,600 feet was easy.  The lake was thawing out and I was able to scout out some camping. This is my very favorite type of terrain….the moonscape it doesn’t appeal to everyone but I find it very special and hope my group would too.  

On the Sierra Club trip the group loved this location it was their favorite on the trip.  We did run into a couple of other backpackers headed into Royce Lakes and they were not happy to see the group.  I knew we could run into some folks but the area is big enough that we went in separate directions.  Since we got there early in the day we did a short hike up to the lake at 11,700 feet and I wanted to see if I could traverse over to the pass to the west of Treasure peak.  There was a bit of snow up to the lake and more on the talus to the pass so I just went part way.  This area is absolutely amazing there is good camping for a small group a long the way especially with that great view looking back to Merriam Peak. 

On the July trip after we finished our scouting mission we headed back down and gathered our packs.  As we looked down from Pine Creek we knew we would have some snow slush fun.  Steve barreled right in and started glissading down…whooping and hollering.  The rest of us picked our way through the slushy 

North side of Pine Creek Pass

afternoon snow.  The views were spectacular as the terrain looking north towards the Wheeler range is so different from where we came.  It didn’t take long to get to Honeymoon Lake but since it was late in the afternoon it was crowded and we took the campsites that were still free.  Thankfully there are a lot of campsites in this area.  This is a nice lake surrounded by lots of trees and a nice waterfall flowing into the lake.  Not exactly my perfect terrain but everyone else really liked this location. 

On Day 5 our last day we had a lot of downhill to do approximately 3000 feet and we expected some exposed and hot terrain.  We also knew by talking to folks that we were going to have a couple of fun creek crossings.  I really enjoyed this hike there was a whole lot to see given this is an old as well as active mining area.  There are some beautiful lakes on the way down. We did have some trouble with one of the creek crossings below PineLake as it was deep and fast in areas and we had one person in the group fall

Looking west up Pine Creek

into the water but they were able to regain their balance.  In hindsight we probably should have crossed that area as a group versus one at a time.  No surprise on the late August trip there were no issues crossing the creek and not even a need to put on water shoes.  The rest of the way down was uneventful and all were happy to reach the car at the trailhead. 

All in all this is a fabulous route and not many people in the French Canyon area which was really really nice.  The scenery is diverse and fabulous and a really create area to explore and do some cross country.    This will go down in the history books as one of my most adventurous hikes given the snow and water situation.  We all agreed that this was a unique and beautiful experience to see all of the snow in the high Sierra and have it mostly to ourselves.