Hi Tom, I can only add my kudos to both the adventure and the writeup. Since nobody else has asked, what's the story with the dessicated buck? I've never seen anything remotely as creepy in the backcountry. Do you suppose he was caught in a blizzard, hunkered down and froze there?

Eerie.

Best,

Rick

"Since nobody else has asked, what's the story with the dessicated buck? I've never seen anything remotely as creepy in the backcountry."

Hi Rick,

It was sort of a tongue in cheek take off on the Western movie trope of The Duke riding past a long horn steer skull into the desert, hot on the trail of Geronimo or some other bad guy.

"Do you suppose he was caught in a blizzard, hunkered down and froze there?"

My partner Fred, ever the cynic, figured sombody dragged it there to freak people out. My take is close to yours: Judging from the rack, he had lived a long, full life, finally figured it was a good day to die, and lay down in a beautiful place to slowly fade into the sunset. Hopefully he got one like that we witnessed up by Wanda
Lake.

Andrew asked about descending Cartridge Creek from Lakes Basin to the Middle Fork Kings.

Amy and I did this as part of an extended SEKI loop in 2004. I can offer the following information:
Secor's description in The High Sierra: Peaks Passes and Trails is reasonably accurate. The old trail is shown on the 15 minute quads but not the 7.5 minute quads. When we did this route, we found portions of the old trail in places, but in other areas, it was essentially gone. The lower portions of the trail were overgrown in 2004 and there is no reason to believe that the situation has improved since then. However, the brush was more easily passable than that clogging the lower reaches of Goddard Canyon. You can't really get lost, but need to be on the correct side of the canyon to make the descent. You will cross the creek a couple of times and Secor describes these crossings. We descended this route; an ascent from the Middle Fork would likely be far more difficult.

CalTopo has the old topo maps available if you set the map source to USGS 1915-1945
http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=36.98818,-118.52755&z=14&b=1930
But note that on the old maps the trail is shown entirely on the north side of the creek, which is not the case on the ground.

James Yurchenco

Edited by drongobird on 09/20/2012 21:47:04 MDT.

Thanks for the info, James. It sounds like a reasonable route as long as one is prepared for a little good old fashioned bushwhacking.

Looks like it was a great trip...I'm jealous!

Tom

Nice report.

Agreed that it is not easy to have to start at Roads End and end on the east side, logistically.

Two Roper sections I am thinking of doing the following way:

1. Paiute or Bishop Pass to Taboose - maybe with visit into Lakes Basin as you did, or maybe with other side trips such as climbing Mount Sill or Arrow Peak;

...and then, as a separate trip:

2. Roads End to Lakes Basin; exit the High Route via either Frozen Lake Pass or Cartridge Pass; then down the Muro Blanco back to Roads End.

- Elizabeth

Awesome TR, I really enjoyed it. The buck is amazingly weird and creepy, love it.