On the trail up to Elizabeth, DW was really feeling the altitude change, so progress was super-slow (about 1 mph average). Fortunately a short rest at Elizabeth put her to rights and we made adequate speed thereafter.
Saw a nice Mountain Garter Snake at Elizabeth Lake.
Following the use-trail up from Elizabeth to the pass was fairly easy - it fades out in a few places, but a quick cast around with a practised eye will pick it up again quickly. Great views from the pass itself.
There is still water in Echo Creek canyon, so it's campable anywhere after the pass. Lost the use-trail over to Nelson because we turned off too early, but easy XC anyhow. Two other groups at Nelson, but no bother.
Got up late, this time it was my turn to be feeling the altitude, so we puttered about around Nelson but gave up on our original plan to visit Reymann. Headed off to Matthes about 11:00. Easy to follow the trail downhill, but we made an error heading up the ridge between Echo Creek and Matthes Lake (first picture below), and ended up cliffed out so had to descend quite a bit until we could lateral across to get up to the saddle.
The last part of the climb had several class 3 spots with enough exposure to make us thoughtful; we had to hand packs up in one place.
DW's initial reaction to the exposed class 3 was "we'll never do that again", but after half an hour thinking it over she agreed that it was not actually that bad, just stressful due to being a new experience, so "OK, we could do that again".
Involuntary "WOW: as Matthes Crest came into view at top.
We bagged the best camp spot at Matthes Lake, which was surprising crowded, with 4 other groups camping and others passing through (the second night, it was just us and one solo camper).
Saturday we went up and found the "Greg Aiello video slot canyon" (exactly where I thought it would be, and very easy to spot at the NE extremity of the head of the Matthes Lake valley). This is a really cool place; well worth a visit.
After enjoying the slot canyon, we went over to the saddle between Echo Ridge and Matthes Crest - lots of nice granite slab hiking, but made more interesting by the need to cross multiple micro-canyons descending from the head of the valley.
The climb offered an ever-changing perspective on the surrounding peaks.
The view down to Echo Lake was marred only by a bright orange tent placed illegally in full view 20' from the outlet creek of Echo Lake - other climbers camping down there were all nicely concealed in the bushes and trees.
Finally, we dropped down to the saddle between Echo Ridge and Cockscomb to get views of Cockscomb, Budd Lake, Cathedral Peaks, and Unicorn Peak before heading back to our camp. All afternoon there was heavy cloud, thunderstorms and rain pretty much everywhere around us, but somehow we were spared.
Back down to our camp for dinner and into the tent just in time for the rain to finally reach us.
Sunday the plan was to laze across to Upper Cathedral Lake, set up camp there, and maybe go up Tresidder, then exit via Budd Lake the next day. The trip around the end of Matthes Crest was fairly easy, but we stayed too high and thus had to do a bit of boulder scrambling (it is probably easier just to cross the low saddle at the end of Matthes Crest directly east of Echo Lake).
The valley around Echo Lake had great views of the "easy" side of Matthes Crest ("so that's how all those climbers got up there" ) and Echo Peaks, but dark clouds were gathering.
We got a few spatters of rain as we came up to Cathedral Pass, then the heavens opened big-time just as we started to hunt for a camp site at Upper Cathedral Lake, including pea-sized hail.
Funnily enough, the only other time we have been backpacking at Cathedral Lakes, two years previously, we also got hailed on!
The rain just kept on pouring down, and after a while we decided that there was no good reason to camp in those conditions when we were less than four miles from our car, so we called it quits and headed out down to TM. It rained all the way down to TM, kept raining as we drove out (absolutely slamming down as we passed Tenaya Lake), and didn't really tail off until White Wolf, so we felt we had made a pretty smart decision. After rain and 54F in TM, it was a little surreal to find temperatures around 100F in Oakdale at 20:00. Made it home by 22:00.
Complete photo album with captions.
Best thing about this trip? NO MOSQUITOS - HURRAH!
Edited 11 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2014 12:33PM by Royalist.
