Cathedral Lake
Many years ago I did a four night trip into the John Muir Wilderness from Wishon Reservoir to Blackcap Basin and back. I thought the area was pretty spectacular high country but with a fair bit of climbing to get there. On the trip, I spent two days getting to Portal Lake and an extra day hiking around the area visiting Midway and Cathedral Lake and checking out Crown Basin. When I was up admiring Cathedral Lake, I had the ambition to see if views over White Divide could be caught through a low notch in the ridge above the lake. I was unsure if it was even possible to get to the ridgeline, but thought it worth a try. It looked fairly steep and rocky… but possible. It was a 900′ gain from lake level through large broken rock… steep but not really a fall risk. Once I attained this notch, views into Kings Canyon Park opened up and small cairns at the pass marked previous passage into this area.
The Notch above Cathedral Lake
Fast forward a few years… and the idea of planning a trip into this region have always been in the back of my mind. I haven’t really been into this area in quite some time. Most of my trips, these last few years in the Sierra have been North of here. So had really forgotten what the terrain can be like off trail. This summer, I started to get the idea for a week long trip into the area with a couple of trail days into Blackcap Basin, through the notch above Cathedral Lake, explore the upper Goddard Creek area and back out over another divide again into Blackcap Basin and back.
Sunset over Midway Lake
I left Wishon Reservoir on the Labor Day weekend and saw but a few people on the trail… mostly heading back out. I think this area gets some good use during the summer months, but by this time it quiets down. Wishon is fairly low… 6500′ and Crown Pass is at 10,200′ so the first day and half are climbing but the trail is painfully flat with these laziest switchbacks that I felt like cutting the trail and get the climbing out of the way. Once at Halfmoon Lake the trail forks and leads through dark forest for a few miles. When it connects with the North Fork Kings River the trail gets quite pretty leading on up to the basin. The late snows this year, I think lead to a vigorous late season for mosquitoes. I haven’t usually had much problems with them in September, but this trip, they were still out in force.
The Cirque
This country really comes into its own above about 10,000′ with more exposed rock and grand views. Treeline is up around 10,800′ so you start to get into the alpine zone here around above 10K. The trail into the basin ends up at Portal Lake, a lovely alpine lake, but I wanted to camp at the much more impressive Cathedral Lake above. Cathedral and Midway Lakes sit in a granite cirque with nice sunset views and that evening I got just that. After an afternoon sprinkle the clouds lifted enough to light up the whole cirque in the orange light of sunset, beautiful. The notch came into full view from here… an it seemed steeper than I recalled, but that is hard to tell until you get up to the face. I only hoped my memory was correct about the other side. I would hate to get up there and find the way down even more treacherous.
Looking out over Cathedral Lake from the notch
The next morning I made way up the 900′ rockfall. The rocks were quite broken up but pretty solid and I made good time to the pass. I did have to work my way around the small snow fields as they were hard ice and completely impassable without proper equipment. Once upon the pass, it was as I remembered it… a couple hundred feet of steep descent to the first little lake and then a winding descent to get to the lower lakes.
Looking down into Goddard Creek from White Divide
This valley was wonderful and these upper alpine lakes were typical Sierra magic. My destination for my first camp was the lake at the head of Goddard Creek and the whole hike up to it was pure pleasure, beautiful area – winding creek, open valley, deep canyon walls. The unnamed lake was also spectacular, set in a narrow end of the canyon, the sound of the creek as it heads down the canyon competing with the falls at the head of the lake from streams pouring off the high rocky peaks.
Goddard Creek
There was a nice camp… hardly used at the base of the lake… and had a good nights sleep apart from the wood rat that kept trying to chew on my pack and trekking poles.
With the intention of finding a route out over Le Conte divide and back into Blackcap Basin, I knew I had better do a bit of recon to make sure that the route was possible. The terrain here is really broken up towards the crest. Not smooth granite, but broken rockfall or sheer rock. The map showed what appeared to be a fairly do-able route at the base of Mt. Reinstein over to Valor Lake so I moved camp to the small lakelets above and day hiked to the Goddard Crest to have a look. I was glad I did. I was amazed how the terrain had changed from one side of the divide to the other. Here, instead of broken rock, it was quite blocky. Huge
Goddard Creek
30′ ledges required me to find ways through or around just to get to the divide. The pass wasn’t that hard, but required a bit of route-finding to get through and around the ledges and blocks. But once there (11,800′), grand views of the valley I had hiked up and views off toward Martha Lake. Looking out from the pass to the Le Conte divide, I decided while it might be possible to safely get over it, it looked doubtful. It required a traverse of a steepish snow field and then to attain the crest I would have to route through or around what looked to be about 40′ of vertical blocky granite – at the least high area. I decided against it and return the way I came – back over the notch.
Upper end of Goddard Creek Canyon
This decision kind of set me back a day, so I wasn’t able to spend another day exploring the area off toward Ionian Basin – which has always been on my todo list.
On the trip back I spent one last night in this area just below the notch on this side. A wonderful un-named lake set at 10,800. That evening the clouds came in and brought some bit of rain. The whole trip up until then, the weather has been perfect in the morning with some afternoon clouds and clear, calm nights. Now it looked as if some more moisture was coming. Hoping for a clear morning so that I wouldn’t have to find my way through the rockfall on wet granite… I got just that. But just. The next day by noon, big thunderheads were coming in with obvious rain.
After the successful trek back to Cathedral Lake, I decided to head off toward Lighting Corral Meadow for my last night before hitting the trail back. By about 1pm the rain started and rained pretty much all afternoon. The meadow was very nice and the rain temporarily cleared out the mosquitoes.
Goddard divide looking down on Martha lake
Rain coming
The next morning, again clearing, off down the granite slopes leading toward the trail along the North Fork of the Kings River. By noon the rains started up again, with hail, making hiking back that day very damp with about a half inch of melting hail making the trail a huge puddle.
The remote Goddard Creek area was definitely the highlight of the trip, but getting there was a long trek. The two day trail hike in, while pretty, was something I had done before, so it didn’t have the impact you get first time through. I was also amazed how different the high country here is compared to that of North Yosemite Park. The granite is much more broken up here. There, even high on the crest it doesn’t appear as weathered and broken. While not quite what I expected… still a good trip.
Tags: Alpine Lakes, Backpacking, Canyons, Kings Canyon, Mountains, Off-Trail Hiking, Remote Destinations
