September 2014 Ritter Range and Upper Lyell Fork Headwaters Options

[Jim H]

Happy holidays, all. I had a few days off last week and started dreaming big for next summer. Thought I'd share my resulting map and see if anyone had any experiences to share.

I was looking at a few paths to explore the highs sierra between Thousand Island Lake and the Lyell Fork of the Merced River, hopefully affording an opportunity to explore the headwaters of the Lyell Fork. If I can make this trip happen, I'd have about 8 days, and would like to take my time, starting in Agnew Meadows and ending in the Valley, in early to mid September 2014. Here's the caltopo link that shows the map and options.

Link: http://www.caltopo.com/map?id=1667

From reading through quite a few posts on SummitPost, it seems like the Davis Lakes Option and the Twin Island Lakes Option are known, and that dropping into the Lyell Fork valley between Rogers and Electra Peak has been done before, but I couldn't find anything on whether the Marie Lakes Option I mapped had been done before or was really feasible. Might also make sense to start the trip at Silver Lake Trailhead (only a dot on the map) with this route, but I'd hate missing Thousand Island Lake.

I may have to stick with the original Established Trail Option depending on who joins me on the trip, but I'm looking to keep a few more ambitious ideas on the back burner if it ends up being just my brother and I.

So far the SHR route through Glacier Pass to Lake Clarence is my favorite. Then I'd deviate north at Twin Island Lakes, dropping into the Lyell Fork headwaters between Rogers and Electra peaks. We'd take our time, so I'm not too worried about being able to cover typical SHR hiker mileage per day. We'd target Lake Clarence on night 1, Somewhere above Twin Island Lakes on night 2, maybe a play day in here, upper Lyell Fork valley on night 4, play day night 5, Washburn/Merced Lake night 6, leaving an extra night in case of backtracking, etc.

Any thoughts/stories/fishing reports are appreciated. Cheers.

[Katy Anderson]

A trail report from a couple that did the Marie Lakes option to get to the Lyell Fork of the Merced http://www.highsierratopix.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3348 .

And some pics from the Lyell Fork http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?3,68769,68769#msg-68769 , definitely an area worth visiting.

[Jim H]

Thank you so much for the links. I hadn't seen those and they're spot on.

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