August 12 ~ August 15, 2004

Photography by  Bernie and John Lee

Trip Organizer: Bernie (N6FN)

The Lamark and Muriel Peaks backpack is an extremely scenic, high-country, cross-country loop trip starting at North Lake (elev 9,360) going over Lamark Col (elev 12,920) down the length of Darwin Canyon, then traveling  north across Darwin Bench to the three lakes on the south side of Muriel Peak, up over  Alpine Col (elev ~12,400) past Muriel Lake to Piute Pass and then back to North Lake.

Total trip distance is about 17 miles, not counting side trips.  Approximately half of the trip is cross-country with a great deal of difficult  boulder hopping on steep talus slopes.  On this trip we climbed two summits: Mt Lamark elev 13,417 - class 2 from Lamark Col, and Muriel Peak elev 12,937 - class 3 from Alpine Col.

Leaving Escondido at 4 am we arrived in Bishop at about 11 am to pick up our Wilderness Permits.  Because permits were in short supply for our departure date, Ken Babione - KF6RAD, a ham who lives in Bishop, helped us get the permits.  Without his generous assistance we would have had to choose another date or a different hike. 

After spending a bit of time visiting with Ken while having breakfast at the Bishop Airport, we drove up to the North Lake trail head to start our trip.  

Within 30 minutes of starting our hike it started raining lightly.  As it turned out, rain or the threat of rain, would be our steady companion for the duration of the trip.

Our destination the first day was Upper Lamark Lake, approximately 2 miles and 1,560 feet in elevation gain from the trail head.  

About 0.2 miles before reaching Upper Lamark, you come to Lower Lamark Lake.  The trail to Lower Lamark is well maintained and easy to follow.  From Lower Lamark to Upper Lamark the trail is somewhat indistinct.

 The first portion of the hike is in and out of a Aspen and Lodgepole forest.  With increasing elevation, the views of red colored Mt Emerson, North Lake and the valley towards Bishop and the distant White Mountains are superb.

 It rained on and off all the way to Upper Lamark, luckily it stopped raining while we set up camp and cooked dinner.  At sunset, the last of the sun's rays striking the storm laden sky east of our campsite was spectacular.

Bernie fly-fished a bit just before dark and caught and released three fish.  Two were large, mature "hook-jaw" brookies.  

The following morning the peaks above us were covered white, as if it had snowed.  But it had been too warm for snow, hail had fallen the previous day and during the night.  While we had experienced rain, higher up it had been hailing.

Beyond Upper Lamark, the balance of our trip until we reached the main trail near Piute Pass on Sunday, would be above timberline.

Getting an early start we headed towards Lamark Col.  ( A col is a steep high mountain pass.)  Beyond Upper Lamark the route is cross-country, except for a short section of trail which had been cut into the side of a cliff.  On the way up, the route afforded spectacular views down the mountain.

The photo below shows Upper Lamark and the red rock of Mt Emerson.  Off in the distant horizon, across the Owens Valley, are the White Mountains.

Wishbone Lake, with its milky turquoise color, typical of glacially fed lakes, can be seen in the photo below.

In the photo to the right, John Lee is traversing the snow field just below Lamark Col.

In the photo to the right, John is at Lamark Col, elevation 12,920 feet.  In the distance is Mt Darwin and the Darwin Glaciers.

From the col we were able to access the Bishop Silver Peak repeater and speak with Don, N6RU.  He reported extremely unstable weather all along the Owens Valley and advised against climbing higher.  We could see several storm cells in the area and one to the south that could be heading our direction.

After much deliberation about the dangers posed by the worsening weather--storm cells, thunder and lightening could be seen in several directions--we finally decided to go ahead and climb Mt. Lamark, vowing to turn back if got too bad.

In most of these pictures you can see distant storm cells which were dropping rain and hail, with occasional bursts of thunder and lightening.

As we climbed, we naturally gravitated to the highest point on Mt. Lamark, assuming that would be the summit.  But arriving there we could not find the peak register.  A close examination of the topo map to determine our exact position revealed that the "official" summit was a few hundred yards away.  Strangely, the official summit is actually a bit lower than where we assumed the summit to be.

While working our way around to the "official" summit we experienced some wind and were pelted by a minor amount of hail, but after a bit it quit.

In the photo to the left and the one below, we are on the "false" summit.  In the photo below the flat area to the far left of where John is standing is about where the official summit is located.

The photo below is looking north from on top of Mt. Lamark.  The high dark peak near the middle of the skyline is Mt. Humphrey's, 13,986 feet.  

The photo to the right looks straight down on a glacial lake at the foot of the main glacier.  Only a small portion of the glacier is white, most of the ice is covered with rock debris.  Further down is Wishbone Lake, Upper Lamark, and barely visible is a small piece of Lower Lamark and lower yet is North Lake, where we started from.

The photo below is looking west from the atop Mt. Lamark.  A storm can be seen in the upper right.  The small section of the lake visible on the far left is the last lake in the chain of lakes in Darwin Canyon.  

The following day would hike a bit beyond the far side of that lake, turn right across Darwin Bench (invisible because of the mountain in the center) making our way along the near edge of the lake in the center right and across the narrow isthmus between the two lakes.  These lakes are unnamed and are referred to by their elevations, lakes 11540 and 11546. 

In the photo below, Jeff and John have located the register on the "official" summit of Mt. Lamark.  The register is kept in an aluminum pipe, with a cast aluminum cap.  It doesn't look like it, but just a few feet behind John is a direct drop off of more than a 1,000 feet.

Jeff wrote the obligatory trip notes and signed our names and dated the register.  After that we had to hurry down as the weather was turning colder and it was starting to hail again.

The weather was always changing, by the time we worked our way back to Lamark Col, where we had left our packs, the weather was much improved.  Storm cells would come and go very quickly.

Here John is starting to descend from Lamark Col; Mt. Darwin and the Darwin Glaciers are in the distance.  The highest of the 5 Darwin lakes is also visible at the lower right.

The photo on the right was taken about half way down from the Col into Darwin Canyon.  Visible are the lower four of the five Darwin lakes.  Our camp for the evening would be at the near end of the furthest lake.

By the time we reached the near end of the last lake, the weather was again turning bad and starting to rain, so we quickly made camp.  As we set up camp and cooked dinner, several heavy rain squalls came through.

In the photo below the weather is partially clearing in-between rain squalls.

Just before dark, Bernie tried his luck fly-fishing and caught several golden-rainbow hybrids.

The following morning turned bright and sunny, as it had the previous morning--it just wasn't destined to stay that way for long.

In the photo below, we have just crossed the isthmus between the two lakes we had seen the day before from on top of Mt. Lamark.  That's not an antenna, its Bernie's fly-pole case.

On the right we are taking a short break at un-named lake 11910, at the foot of the South Face of Mt. Murriel.  As you can see, in most of these pictures the going is rough, we had to rock hop and climb over endless fields of large boulders.  On this day we traversed and climbed through more than four miles of this difficult and time consuming terrain.  From here we started the climb to Alpine Col, a steep talus slope on the south-west side of Mt. Muriel.

Upon reaching Alpine Col, it begin getting colder as another weather front approached.  Again we debated the merits of making a climb to the summit so late in the day with several ominous looking storm cells in the distance.

Since our luck had been holding so far, we decided to go for it.  John jokingly said "we were golden".  Leaving our packs at the col we started the ascent, the guide book indicates this is a class 2 climb, but we found that is understating the case.

Scrambling up the side of Muriel there were a couple of places where it is necessary to climb short sections of class 3 rock faces with some significant exposure.   Near the summit it levels out where you can easily walk to the high point.

All the while we were going up, the weather continued to deteriorate, but  nothing very ominous looking was in our immediate vicinity.   Once on top we enjoyed the view and took several pictures of the panorama that lay before us.  In the distance several dark storm cells were visible.

After taking some photos Bernie pulled a VX-5R transceiver out of his pack,  attached an extended antenna and proceeded to make a short call to N6RU in Bishop, as we could bring up the BARC, Silver Peak repeater from this vantage point.  However immediately upon making the call, John and Bernie were startled to hear high voltage corona coming off the antenna.  The passing clouds overhead were generating a charge on the ground, the peak we were standing on was in danger of being hit by lightning!

Recognizing the hazard, we bolted off the summit and quickly made our descent, praying that our luck would hold.  Fortunately, there were no lightning strikes while we were in the vicinity.  In the distance however, we could hear faint rumblings--reminders of what could have been.

After making our descent back to the col, we picked up our packs and headed down a wide chute and a steep slope filled with large boulders all the way to Lake Goethe.  From there we skirted the eastern shore of the lake, making our way over more large boulders the full length of the lake. 

After leaving Lake Goethe, the weather began to worsen, with an occasional spattering of light rain.  Just as it had done the previous two days.

We continued hiking toward Lake Muriel looking for a flat place to camp, but between the large boulders and steep terrain there was nothing large enough for all three of us.  Finally, just as it was starting to seriously rain we made an impromptu camp at the southeast end of Lake Muriel.

As it had done the day before, it rained rather hard, with some lightening and thunder in the distance and then cleared off before sunset.  The photo of the rainbow over Piute Pass was taken from our campsite.  In the background is Mt. Humphreys, elevation 13,986 ft.

The following morning we broke camp early, hiked to Piute Pass, where we intersected the main trail and headed back to North Lake.  The sky threatened rain all the way back, and it started raining again just as we arrived at the trail head.

Even though unstable weather and rain was our constant companion, we never really got wet.  A little bit of luck and the right kind of gear kept us comfortable.  This was a great trip!