HIGH SIERRA HIKE, Aug. - Sept. 1996

by Michael Krabach

My first hike into the High Sierra Nevada Mountains in California occurred in 1981. We planned to enter the Evolution Basin region via a cross country route over Lamarck Col. Unfortunately the 1972 ed of “Mountaineer's Guide to the High Sierra” published by the Sierra Club had drawn the map trail over Lamarck Col wrong. If EMS had stocked the current edition at that time, 1976, we would have had a proper route for our hike. The result was 6 days of bushwacking, boulder climbing and frustration. Only on the last day on a day hike up to Piute Pass did I discover from a ranger the correct route. So this trip in 1996 was a repeat of the original trip by the same people, but now we knew where we were going. In the intervening years I hiked solo in the same mountains learning the trails and gaining experience. This was going to be my 9^th hike in the High Sierra mountains.

The original plan was to go in to Evolution Basin via the Lamarck Col, hike south on the Pacific Crest Trial (John Muir Trail) and come out via Echo Col into the South Lake region. Weather and old age (you'll know it when you feel it) caused us to execute “Plan B”. So we skipped Echo Col and came out Bishop Pass. We arrived in Bishop, California on August 27 and drove the next day to the trail head at North Lake where we started the hike. We came out at South Lake on Saturday September 7.

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