THE LUPINE LOOP

Day 3 was a layover day. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, but the possibilities seemed endless. After breakfast, we hiked along the east shore of Lower Desolation Lake. We returned to the trail, and followed it through a maze of boulders, meadows, tarns, and streams. There was pink heather everywhere, along with views in every direction. We climbed up to a bench, and the vast expanse of Desolation Lake unfolded before us. Desolation Lake is huge, and wide open. A ridge with a series of rocky peaks defines the west side, while Mount Humphreys towers above the east side. Campsites were indeed very limited, though there were a couple of exposed spots close to the lakeshore. We continued along the eastern shore, before climbing to the east, away from the lake. I thought we might get a view of Forsaken Lake, but when we crested the ridge we found that it was hidden from view.

That spot provided a nice overview of the area. I was tentatively planning to hike all the way to the summit of the Four Gables, at the head of the valley beyond Desolation Lake. From the ridge, I realized that getting there from the east side of Desolation Lake might be problematic. Near the upper end of the lake, rocky cliffs drop right down to the water. It may be possible to scramble along the edge of those cliffs but it looked tricky. I also spotted a possible route around the backside of those cliffs, but it was a steep scree gully that didn’t look fun. We decided to backtrack a bit and cross the outlet to the west side of the lake.

We actually spotted another group of hikers as we were approaching the outlet stream. They were wading across, just downstream from the end of the lake. That route looked unappealing to me, so we aimed farther downstream. We came out at a spot where we were able to rock hop across. It was long and a little tricky, but we were able to make it with dry boots. Once on the far side, we climbed up to a low ridge parallel to the lake. We followed it for a bit, before beginning a more demanding climb up the hillside beyond, above Wedge Lake. This was true off-trail hiking, through meadows full of polished white rock complemented by numerous patches of pink heather. At the top, we were treated to spectacular views across Desolation Lake to Mount Humphreys. To the south, the view was dominated by the peaks, alpine lakes, and snow of the Glacier Divide.

We had a decision to make there. There was a muddy basin below us that looked unappealing. We could avoid it by following the ridge around and above it, or descend towards Mesa Lake. I was still hoping to make it to the Four Gables, so we turned north and headed up. We passed below an unnamed peak on a rocky, fun traverse. Then we joined the main ridge at a saddle just below the unnamed peak, which is composed entirely of brilliant white rock. From there we had a lovely view of Star Lake below Point 12,225’. Star Lake is in the French Canyon basin, which is entirely separate from Humphreys Basin. It was cool being able to see new territory.

From the saddle, I took a quick side trip up to the summit. More great views waited for me there. That perch also gave me a great overview of the route to the Four Gables. I noticed a couple of things. First, they were still a long distance away. We had been fooling around all morning, but I wasn’t much closer to them than when we had left camp. Also, portions of the route were very rocky, and a couple of stretches were buried under snow cornices.

I rejoined Christy and described the route. She wasn’t interested in trying something that ambitious. I wasn’t that committed to it, either, and preferred to spend the afternoon hiking with Christy. We decided to follow the ridge west towards Point 12,225’. There was another unnamed peak in that direction. South of that peak was a narrow, rocky ridgeline that promised views into the next lake basin to the west.

We actually spotted another hiker along this stretch, but he was well above us. We contoured over to join the ridge south of Point 12,225’, and a spectacular view unfolded below us. We looked out over an amazing expanse of alpine lakes. Blanc and Roget Lakes were directly below us, and beyond were Puppet Lake, Lorraine Lake, Paris Lake, and Alsace Lake. This view was even more breathtaking, highlighted by a giant, unnamed waterfall tumbling over the cliffs across the basin from us.

From there, I was tantalized by the next unnamed peak, and the dramatic pyramid of Pilot Knob beyond. I decided to try to summit one or both of them. Christy was content to relax there in the sun. She figured that the view couldn’t get any better, and she may have been right.

A bit of scrambling on talus and snow brought me to the notch below the next unnamed peak. The route looked reasonable on the map, but reality was different. Climbing from there looked daunting. The ridge was steep, and covered in huge boulders. It looked terrible, so I decided to contour along the south side of the mountain to the next gap. From that gap, I might be able to ascend Pilot Knob.

The next stretch required a little bit of scrambling and bushwhacking. By the time I neared the gap, the summit was still quite a distance away, and I was running out of time. We’d never make it back to camp before dark if I pressed on. I decided to turn back.

I rejoined Christy a bit later. Neither of us wanted to return by the same route. Plus, finding another way back would be more fun. The trick was finding a descent route that wouldn’t be too steep for Christy’s knee. I studied the map and came up with a plan. We circled around the head of a drainage and began working our way down a spur ridge. Views of the Glacier Divide were spectacular along here. I could see that the ridge would get very steep at the end, so we began gradually dropping down into the drainage below. Doing so enabled us to moderate the grade of our descent. This worked perfectly, and we eventually contoured around below the cliffs at the end of the ridge we had started on.

We dropped down to Square Lake, passing through meadows of lupine. The wildflowers had been spectacular all day, with pink heather, purple lupine, and red paintbrush everywhere we looked. This final section of the hike was dominated by the lupine though. There was so much of it, I suggested calling the route of our hike the Lupine Loop. Our serial killer friend had called it to the Two Pass loop or Three Pass loop or something like that, but I think my name has a better ring to it.

The final stretch of our hike followed my route from the previous evening, when I hiked back from Tomahawk Lake. It brought us over a grassy ridge and directly down to Lower Desolation Lake just in time for sunset. Unfortunately, this one was a bit of a dud. We can’t really complain about that though, after seeing three great ones in a row.

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