Sonora Pass to Leavitt Lake (+bushwack)

Trip date: 8 Sept 2013

The rim fire is burning. A half dozen other fires too. Its an especially smokey summer in the Sierra, thanks (evidently) to a careless, law-breaking hunter. Its a bummer, but it doesn't have to spoil the fun: most of the smoke and flame lately is south of Tioga Pass (route 120), so I'll just head up the Sonora Pass (route 108).

I got a late start on saturday, and didn't get to camp until around 9pm, a few 10s of miles west of the Sonora Pass. Smokey as shit, so much for the reports. It was so hazy I grazed my car on a boulder as I pulled into camp, cracking the side trim panel. I haven't caused damage to my own car in over a decade, which I think is an indicator of the absurd atmosphere up there. That or the darkness. Bottle of pale ale, deep breath (cough cough), sleep (ahhh).

I fried some eggs the next morning, made coffee, and took off down the Pacific Crest Trail packing my fly rod (and $14 fishing permit, having missed the "free fishing day" by less than 12 hours). The Sonora Pass area feels like a bit of an anomaly in the High Sierra, though a geologist might well correct me for saying that. Instead of the big, smooth granite one finds everywhere else, this is a volcanic landscape that alternately looks like the moon or Mexico.

Despite starting at 9610', the trail does nothing but climb for a few miles. Then it comes through what I thought was a pretty dramatic pass (no name or mention on my map), at which point I had my first view of Latopie Lake (about 10,400'):

Here, fishie. I picked my own trail down to the lake, on loose dirt and slabs of sharp rock that slid when I touched them. I surveyed the lake. Not a trout in sight. I'm not much of an angler, so if I can't see the fish, I don't try to catch them. Left Latopie heading SW towards Koenig Lake. Found myself high on a cliff with a grand view of the almost emerald blue waters of Koenig (plus its little offspring pond):

Excited, I scrambled down a steep ravine. Abruptly, a decent sized rock I placed my foot on gave way. I hit the ground pretty hard, blood on my wrist and leg, but what shocked me was the intense speed with which the rock bounced down the remaining few hundred feet of the ravine. What the fuck was I thinking? How had I not noticed the pitch of the slope? And I already knew these rocks were unstable from my initial approach. Jeezus. I checked out my cute little gashes, concluded they were fine, and started to carefully climb back up the way I had come down. Success, but not without a few shots of adrenaline. Looking back down, its almost impossible to gauge the pitch. Trust me, it was dammed steep:

I found a kinder, gentler route down to Koenig by following a dried up creek bed (no doubt a torrent in the spring). On the way, I passed the remains of a less fortunate traveler:

A horse? Mule? Whatever, its not me. I circled Koenig. No fish! A bunch of ducks, though, whom I scared the poo out of. They burst forth with an adrupt, unholy war cry of alarm and terror, and glided to the center of Koenig's offspring pond. I checked my shorts: still clean and dry :)

I sat to eat, drink and study the map. Two busts, and one option remaining: Leavitt Lake. I figured it was somewhere over the ridge, and started out. Soon I found a use trail, and followed that over the ridge: voila Leavitt Lake, complete with a few pickup trucks at the shore. This was the reason I had hoped to avoid it, but oh well. As I came over the final rise I found myself a mere 15' from a man with a large paunch who was taking a leak on the tire of his truck. Or maybe it was his buddie's truck; who the hell pisses on their own truck?

"Howdy!" I called out.
"Urrhoop," the guy grunted, and swung himself 90 degrees so his back was to me.
"Hey, I don't care man," I said. "Bears do it, its cool."
"Oh, s'long's'as'yer'not'a'lady," he replied, and reverted to watering the tire.

I polled for information on the jeep track that brought them there. It was rough, they said. No way a yuppie Subaru could make it. Heck, even a Jeep prolly couldn't make it. But a truck, well, of course that could make it. I decided to skip off to the far side of the lake.

Leavitt Lake is a pretty decent size and it took me a good 20 minutes to get there. I sat down on a large boulder that jutted out into the lake a little bit, and studied the water. Fish! Lovely, dark, trout. Swimming around and occasionally popping up to eat a fly, or whatever the hell they were eating. The world has enough crappy fishing stories already so I'll be super brief and spare the drama. Suffice it to say I got my ass kicked by these mountain trout. They patently ignored the first two flys I tried, ate the second two clean off the line (I felt the nibble), and then the wind picked up to the point that a rookie like me couldn't make a cast.

It was 3pm anyway, time to split. I saw a trail heading south from Leavitt Lake to the PCT, from which I could loop back around to Sonora Pass. It looked about 10 miles or so. It was a 1000' straight up to rejoin the PCT. Great view looking south through the Hoover Wilderness and into Yosemite. You can see some smoke hanging in the air. I suspect those peaks are Kennedy and Molo.

Some genius in the parks service got his acronym jumbled in making this sign post. Pretty funny. You can see someone took the time to start carving out a fix. Now we're on the Pacific Trail Crest Trail. Nice one.

Jogging back through the endless moonscape proved a bit challenging, if only due to my fatigue. I made it before sunset though, in time to relax, have a beer and brew some coffee before tackling the long drive back to reality.

Summary: Great loop, lots of rocks, lots of views, altitude, beautiful lakes (two with no fish). Many sections of the PCT in this region look like the moon. Climbing peaks here seems dangerous. If streams and meadows are your thing, avoid this place. About 16 miles, a lollipop loop, 8ish hours including off-trail and fishing

Would I do it all again? Sure. I love the Sierra, even the moonscape sections. It would be a trip to see this in spring, though I'd be a little bit nervous - loose rock plus raging water are a bad mix.

Parting shot: only 20 minutes from home, I noticed that Dublin, CA was on fire:

Its probably tough to make anything out in this, snapped at 70 mph as it was, but that orange blob is flame. Lots of flame, because it was about 10 miles (a guess) away from me. I looked for news when I got home but there was none. The whole damn world is burning and no one knows it, I thought. The next morning I learned that of course, people knew. And they were working like hell to contain it. Here is a much better picture taken by an actual photographer.