Evolution Loop
Notes by piero scaruffi | Travel resources | Other California destinations | California hikesPictures of the hikes
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The Evolution region of the Eastern Sierra can be reached from Bishop on a
day hike via either Lake Sabrina or North Lake.
Assuming that you park one car at Lake Sabrina, you can design a loop that takes you through three of the most spectacular places of the Evolution region: Darwin Canyon, Evolution Lake and the lakes south of Lake Sabrina. Lake Sabrina is located at the end of 168, west of Bishop, about 1.5 hours driving time south of Mono Lake, i.e. 6/7 hours from the Bay Area. From Bishop, take 168 west, aka West Line St, all the way to the end. You need to park one car by the Lake Sabrina campground (as far into 168 as the law alows you). Then head for nearby North Lake with another car (the North Lake turnout is on the right just before the Lake Sabrina campground). The road to North Lake is only 3km but mostly unpaved. The only way to leave the car at the North Lake trailhead is to take campsite for two nights. Otherwise you have to leave the car at the hikers' parking lot 2kms before the trailhead. The North Lake trailhead splits almost immediately: the main trail goes up towards Piute Pass, the left fork goes to the Lamarck Lakes. Take the left to the Lamarck Lakes. You will cross three bridges. Then in about one hour you reach the lower lake. At the unmarked fork, go left and cross the creek. Continue following the trail. Just before the second lake, a sign "Trail" sends you to the right side of the creek. In a few minutes you have to cross back to the left side, which may or may not be intuitive. If you miss this crossing, you get to the second lake, and that means you are on the wrong route. From there on that use trail is usually easy to follow. It enters a canyon and follows it to the plateau of Mt Lamarck.
To the southwest of Mt Lamarck is a
snow field. Lamarck Col (or, better, Pass) is the prominent chimney west (right) of it.
This can be a major hassle because of the ice between the bowl and the actual
pass. The ice is always there, any season of any year, no matter how little
it snowed. To bypass it, there are two easy ways. One is to simply climb the
gentle moraine to the left even before you arrive to the bowl. The other one
is to climb higher up the promontory to the left. When you arrive at the bowl,
stay about 10 meters higher to your left.
I'll describe the route to bypass the ice coming down from Lamarck Pass because it is usually downhill that one gets more intimidated. From the pass, walk down just a few steps and start traversing to your right. Walk through a notch and downclimb into the first chute (a little tricky, but this is the only difficult part). Then stay at approximately the same elevation and climb the other ridge of the chute. Climb up this second chute and climb over its other ridge. Now downclimb into this much gentler chute or, if there is still ice even in this chute, traverse one more chute: the chutes get gentler and gentler as you keep moving in the same direction. In fact, going this way is a shortcut of sorts even with no snow.
When you reach the top of
Lamarck Col (almost 4000m) you are welcomed by the sign of the Kings Canyon
national park and you have a great view of the lakes of Darwin Canyon,
After Lamarck Pass the use trail is no longer useful. Descend into Darwin Canyon coasting the lakes to the north. Make sure to look back countless times because you need to remember where Lamarck Pass is, and there is literally no major landmark to help you. There are five main lakes: Darwin 1 (as far west as you can see) to Darwin 5 (the highest that you can see). Ignore Darwin 5 that you should not reach. Your descent route is to head for Darwin 4 and, if you are lucky, after a few minutes of downclimbing boulders, you will hit one of the many use-trails that come up from Darwin 4. The use-trail continues down Darwin Canyon, coasting all lakes to the right (north side). The other side usually has snow. All these lakes are approximately at the same elevation of 3500 meters. You are passing in front of Mt Darwin, Mt Mendel and the unnamed peak that is almost as high as them. Alas the terrain is as unfriendly as it gets. The use trail goes up and down, and frequently dead-ends against impassable boulders or... in the water. After Darwin 1, the slope gets steeper and the creek creates waterfalls and rapids. The canyon also opens up quite a bit. Now you want to cross the creek and head south. This will lead you to another lake, Darwin 0. Bend left as much as you can avoiding the moraine coming down from the corner peak. There is a use-trail but finding it is like a lottery, so, if you don't find it, simply keep circling left around this corner peak, slowly entering the John Muir Trail side of things. You can clearly see that you hit a T junction. Unfortunately the John Muir Trail is much lower than where you are, and of course you want to limit the elevation loss as you head towards it. Boulder hopping and bushwhacking takes you to a place near Evolution Lake where you can easily cross the drainage and meet the John Muir trail.
A word of caution if you are coming from the opposite direction. First of all,
make sure you keep bending right to enter the Darwin Canyon. It is tempting
to stay in the middle of the Darwin Ledges (where the main creek is) but then
you may head straight ahead, which actually takes you into the Goethe
basin. You have to keep circling to the right in order to enter Darwin Canyon.
Note that it is difficult to see Lamarck Col from any of the lower lakes.
What you
see is either the peaks of the Goethe basin (if you are looking more north
than east) or the ridge connecting Lamarck Col to Mt Darwin's north face
(if you are looking east). It is very hard to tell where Lamarck Col is
from any of the lakes. When you reach Lake Darwin 4, there are cairns and
use-trail that should help. Basically, Lamarck Col is straight up vertical
from Darwin 4.
Back to the route towards Mt Darwin:
use the John Muir Trail to coast
Evolution Lake and continue south on it towards Sapphire Lake. Before this lake
(past Mt Spencer on the left), head up the ledges. If you keep Mt Spencer to
the left as a reference point, you will be heading up west towards unnamed lake
right below Mt Haeckel. From this lake look up north (left) and you should
identify a prominent moraine that, unlike the nearby slippery granite slabs,
allows to climb (class 2) towards a chimney (also class 2). When the chimney
ends, you are above the granite slabs. Move up and right towards the crest
that connects Mt Haeckel and Mt Darwin. You should see a U-shaped boulder.
Climb towards it and onto it. It allows you to cross over into the Haeckel basin. There is a small lake underneath. Coast to the left of it (lots of boulder hopping) and finally reach better ground, but stay as much to the left as possible to minimize the up and down ridges of this plateau. If you head for the northeastern corner of the plateau, you will enter a steep chute with much loose scree that goes straight down to Midnight Lake. It is debatable whether this is a short-cut, but it is certainly not for the faint of heart. It is more reasonable to head for the ridge to its right that overlooks Midnight Lake to the left and Hungry Backpacker Lake to the right. Continue on that ridge until a chute on the left (south) of the lake that allows you to zigzag to the lake over gentler terrain. Once at the lake coast the south side until you his the trail. The trail goes down to Dingleberry Lake and Blue Lake and finally Lake Sabrina. The trailhead for Lake Sabrina is located on the paved road before the dam. When you are coming down the trail, you'll end up on the paved road halfway between the campground and the dam. Just walk down a short distance on the paved road and you should find your car in a few minutes. 
(Topoquest) My 2008 time:
Note that a shorter loop can be made from Lake Sabrina southwest along Bishop Creek through a series of lakes to Bottleneck Lake (3400m). Then bend west through the Schober Holes (another series of small lakes) and climb the ridge (3800m) to the north of the moraine. Continuing straight west one reaches Darwin Canyon bypassing Lamarck Col. But this is a completely cross-country route. |
Pictures of this hike
See also: Weather forecast for the Evolution region |
