Five Lakes Basin, Tahoe National Forest
July 3 - 7, 2003

(...or, "Lost and Found with Dave")
By Steve Sergeant

I co-lead a backpacking trip over the Independence-day holiday weekend. Dave Barry was the leader and organizer. Participating were Jean Higham-Sergeant, Elizabeth Schoendaler, Doug Riggle, Carl Schwab, Toru Nakamura, Patricia Lunitz, Pete Symonds, and Edie Nelson.

Thursday, July 3, 2003

We started out at the Carr Lake trail head at 9:00 AM -- though it was about 9:20 when we actually started hiking. The skies were clear, and the temperature was in the high 60's. A perfect Sierras day. The trail took us past the forest service campgrounds on the shore of Carr Lake, and continued eastward along the southern shore of Feely Lake, before climbing gently to overlook Island Lake. At an overlook to Island Lake, we took our first, sit-down break.

After our break, we hiked through cool, shaded forest, and past trail junctions to Penner Lake, Round Lake, Milk Lake, Grouse Ridge, and Crooked Lakes. By noon we were on top of Sand Ridge, where we stopped for lunch. We played a little in a snowfield on the north-facing slope of the ridge.

From the top of San Ridge we had views of the Black Buttes nearby, English Mountain, and the more distant Sierra Buttes and far off to the northwest, down in the Sacramento Valley, Sutter Buttes.

After lunch, we hiked down the eastern edge of Sand Ridge into the Five Lakes Basin. We split-up to start looking for a campsite about 2:00 PM. I found a campsite large enough for our eight tents on the rise immediately surrounded by the three largest lakes in the basin. After setting up camp, some of us went for a swim while others explored the immediate area some more. A few went fishing.

By dinner time, the mosquitos descended on us in thick swarms. The hot water commissary allowed everyone to observe and comment on other's food selections. Some were almost one-pot gourmets, others were content with simple sustenance. For example, Jean and I had pre-packaged our own dried-food recipes, while many people relied on freeze-dried, pre-packaged meals, and Pete stuck with his trusty staples of peanut butter and oatmeal. Carl endeared himself to the group by producing a large bag of Dove chocolates, and passing them around.

After dinner, we climbed a rocky plateau above the lake to escape the mosquitos, and to watch the sunrise over the Black Buttes to the south.

After dark, I tried to offer a bit of an astronomy presentation, but the mosquitos, and my fatigue from the day, made it a short one. Before I gave up, several people got to see the great globular star cluster in the constellation Hercules through Carl's binoculars.

Friday, July 4, 2003

Dave called "hot water" about 7:30 AM, and people emerged from their tents for breakfast. Over breakfast, we discussed possible plans for day hikes. Pete had explored part of the route to the Black Buttes the night before, and had found it difficult due to all of the snow on the north-facing slopes. So we arrived at the consensus to head east to the much larger French Lake. This would be a cross-country hike.

Several participants initially thought about doing something easier, but in the end, we all started out on the hike to French Lake. We hiked up a marshy drainage on the south slope of Five Lakes Basin, over a little unnamed pass, and down into a drainage leading to Canyon Creek, below the outlet of French Lake. We crossed the drainage and climbed the granite slope on the east side, where we stopped for a brief break. We spent some time discussing the best way to climb the steep granite slopes on ahead of us. We chose a high route up a smaller, tributary drainage.

Within a half hour, we crested a granite ridge with a sweeping view of French Lake (elev. 6674) and English Mountain (elev. 8373). We spent some time on this ridge discussing ways to descend to the lake basin without running into a cliff. We eventually proceeded due north, and the going on the smooth granite slabs was easier then we expected. We stopped for lunch in a thicket of trees on the lake shore, in sight of the lake's outlet.

As we ate lunch, we began making plans for some of us to climb English Mountain. Dave thought we could get up and down in under two hours. Some of us thought it might take a bit longer, with route finding and perhaps a few wrong turns. At 1:15, five of us, Carl, Dave, Doug, Pete, and I set-out for a cross-country hike to climb English Mountain.

We crossed the dam and climbed rocks on the other side, heading across another granite plateau. Several times we encountered deep gullies in the granite plateau, and had to descend, only to climb again. After forty five minutes, we had hiked a considerable amount of up and down, but had gained no significant elevation.

The route finding involved a lot of discussion. There was some disagreement about whether it was better to head straight up, or follow some contour features some of the way. The air was still and the sun was hot. We all were going through water pretty fast. At an hour out, Carl's altimeter read only 7,300 ft -- less than halfway to the top.

We zig-zagged our way up relatively steep slopes. Sometimes bushwhacking through knee-high brush, and sometimes scrambling on talus fields. We found a pristine-looking snow field closer to the top that we used to refill our water bottles. After lots of distance with seemingly little progress, we were all of a sudden past the vegetation and onto open rock, with the summit in site.

The final 30 feet to the top was a class 3 to class 4 rock climb. I've roped-up for easier routes in the past, but we had no ropes. We arrived at the summit about 3:20 PM. The view was all we had hoped for. We could see large lakes in every direction. We could see the towers for the ski lifts at Boreal. We could see Sutter Buttes, Sierra Buttes, and we thought we could see the top of Mount Lassen to the north and to the south, the high peaks in the Crystal Range near South Lake Tahoe. We spent almost 30 minutes enjoying the view on the peak.

For the descent, we chose to follow an east-descending drainage, which we discovered would have been the easy way to climb as well. At the bottom of the drainage, we found the service road to the dam on French Lake, and followed it around to our starting point. It took us barely an hour to descend.

Back at the thicket of trees beside French Lake, we re-joined the rest of our party. They had spent the day swimming and relaxing, and were all rested up for the hike back to our campsite.

We tried a different route back to the campsite, risking some steeper descents. At some places we had to wade through some deep scrubby shrubbery, scramble in a (mostly) dry stream bed, and wind our way through a deep, mosquito-packed forest. Anxious to get back to the campsite for dinner, we weren't doing the best job of staying together. We went over the little unnamed pass, and found that we had split into two groups. Everybody made it back without a problem, and we were back at the campsite preparing dinner a little after 7:00 PM.

Saturday, July 5, 2003

Today we planned a hiking day to a new campsite. The day's destination was originally billed as Penner Lake. But Dave decided that he wanted to go somewhere else. We settled on Downey Lake (elev. 6864), much closer to the trail head, as our campsite for the next two nights.

Dave called "hot water" at 7:30, and people arrived at breakfast with a bit more delay, as they worked on packing up their campsites. By about 9:15, we were ready to hike.

We hiked back to the eastern base of Sand Ridge, and prepared to leave our packs for a brief side hike to Glacier Lake. Patricia volunteered to stay behind and defend our packs against animals. Carl decided to bear-bag his food. I decided to carry my pack, because it was light enough not to hinder me (and I didn't have a way to carry water without it).

We hiked up a drainage toward Glacier Lake, passing through sections of thick forest, over granite slabs, and over a few small snow fields. In a little over half an hour, we arrived at the lake. It was a beautiful lake. From just the right angle, you could see a reflection of the Black Buttes in it, with a large snow field in the foreground.

The hike back down to return to our packs turned out to be more eventful. We found a well-trodden trail that lead a bit farther west than our route up, and so we followed it. On the trail we met a group of mountain bikers on their way up to the lake. We left the trail heading west, winding up some distance southwest of the lake where we left Patricia. We stopped and realized that we were headed in the wrong direction. Considerable discussion, compass and GPS measurements, map and terrain study led to the decision to head back to the trail. We had missed one drainage off of the rim of Glacier Lake basin, and had mistakenly taken another farther west. A little bit east of the trail, and a half hour later, we recognized features of our cross-country route up, and were soon back at the lake with Patricia and our packs. What was supposed to be a one-hour side trip turned into two.

We stopped for lunch beside the little unnamed lakes. After lunch, we hiked up onto Sand Ridge, where we saw the mountain bikers again. As we descended Sand Ridge, we also saw some equestrian travelers.

At the base of Sand Ridge, we stopped for another rest break. A few hundred yards past that rest stop, we found an unmarked trail, not on any of our maps, but very well trodden, that seemed to lead in the direction of Downey Lake. Fifteen minutes later, the trail we seemed to be taking us too far east, away from Downey Lake.

Amidst fierce mosquitos, we stopped and studied our map and landmarks. It looked like the only way to be sure that we were going to get to the lake, was to return to the main trail, and go cross-country down a drainage more westward. So we followed that route, through thick forest, down mucky stream beds, and a couple of tense rock scrambles. Within another hour were on the rocky bluff above the north shore of Downey Lake.

The most of the shore of Downey Lake is rugged and rocky. All around us were small patches of dirt amidst big rocks, just big enough for a tent, most of them occupied. We didn't see anything big enough for a group of ten people with eight tents. Several of us set out counter-clockwise around the lake to look for a suitable campsite. We went all of the way to the lake's outlet on the south side, and saw nothing suitable.

As we were heading back, Pete, Patricia, and Jean started exploring the western shore. From our prospective, the west side looked less promising to us, because of the high cliffs that formed the lake shore, but shortly after we returned to the waiting spot on the north shore, Jean reported in by ham radio that they had found a wonderful spot, and that Pete was on his way back to direct us to it.

The search for a campsite had taken well over an hour, but by 5:30, we were setting up camp. Except for a rather long descent down to the water, it was a wonderful spot. We were on the edge between a lush forest and the shoreline cliff rocks.

As we were preparing for dinner, Carl discovered that he'd left his food bear-bagged back at our lunch-stop lake. Several people pitched-in to provide him a dinner that night, and he made plans to hike back and get it early the next morning. "Oh no," someone exclaimed, "you mean you left the chocolates behind?"

That evening, we all gathered on the cliff overlooking the lake. We watched the sun set on the Black Buttes.

Sunday, July 6, 2003

By the time I woke up, Carl had already hiked back to the previous day's lunch stop, retrieved his food, and returned to Downey Lake. At breakfast, we decided that there would be three different groups doing different things that day.

Dave's group, including Elizabeth, Doug, and Carl, would climb up to Sanford Lake (elev. 7058). Pete, Edie, and Patricia were going to hike downstream from Downey Lake, to some rock-bound, unnamed lakes. Jean and I were going to mind the camp, do some chores, and otherwise be really lazy.

Everyone went their separate directions until just as Jean and I were finishing lunch. Dave and Carl returned to the campsite, and reported the existence of a beach, further south near the lake's outlet. After lunch, Jean and I went down there for a swim, where we met Carl, Doug, Pete, and Edie.

Taking it easy and killing time, the day should have passed slowly -- it passed quickly.

We seemed to linger a bit more over our last dinner of the trip, taking more pictures of each other, and finishing off Carl's chocolates. We particularly savored our sunset-watching ritual on the cliff overlooking the lake.

Monday, July, 7, 2003

It was almost 8:00 when Dave called "hot water". Nobody was in a hurry to leave -- the hike out would be short and easy.

We clowned around a lot at breakfast, and took a lot more pictures of each other, the campsite, and the lake. We were all ready to begin hiking about 9:30.

Carl had scouted a more direct route out to the main trail the previous morning, when he was hiking out to get his food. We followed his route and were back on the main trail in under 20 minutes. We hiked past the junctions for Milk Lake, Round Lake, and Penner Lake, and stopped for a break on the rocks far above Island Lake. Some of us needed the break, some of us were dawdling on the way back out.

It took us less than an hour to hike the rest of the way to the parking lot. We stopped at the outhouse in the Carr Lake camp ground -- the first real sign of civilization. And then, within a few hundred yards more, we were back at the trail head.

We agreed to meet for a late lunch in Auburn, on the way home. We had the mexican restaurant in old town to ourselves. And then we went our separate ways.