I planned to hike from the Donner Pass Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) lot, on Warren Lake Trail, to Warren Lake and camp overnight; then, to do the bushwhack & scramble up the west wall to Paradise Lake, and finally to take the PCT around the west side of Basin and Castle Peaks, back to the car. I had done a trip that ran roughly the reverse of this route on July 16th 2008 (plus a day at Devil's Oven Lake), so I was familiar with these trails and assumed (snicker) that they'd be fairly clear of snow.
When I set off for my hike on Saturday June 20th, 2009, unfortunately there was still too much snow, and I had to turn back without ever reaching Warren Lake -- I would wait until early August 2009 to attempt this route without snow. The Warren Lake Trail was in good condition and relatively snow-free until the saddle where it intersects the Castle Peak ridge trail to the west, and the short Frog Lake Overlook trail to the east; neither of these trails are marked on the 7.5' topo, but you can infer them if you study it for a moment. Upon passing over the saddle and descending down into the drainage of Coon Canyon, the trail was buried under snowfields as it followed along north- and east-facing aspects, and so it became a cross-country trek across the snow.
This wouldn't have been so bad if I had been prepared for it with water-resistant shoes and an extra foam pad for the very high probability of snow camping at the shore of Warren Lake, which shares the same north- and east-facing aspects as the Coon Canyon drainage and therefore a similar degree of snowpack. Additionally, the rockface scramble up to Paradise Lake, which is sketchy when it's perfectly dry, would likely have been under snow and thus required crampons at the least. Finally, I hadn't thought to review recent temperature data for the region to help assess avalanche risk of the steeper portions I assumed would be under snow, particularly of the north-facing aspect dropping down to Warren Lake and the east-facing aspect to ascend to Paradise Lake.
I got about a mile past the main drainage flowing out of Coon Canyon on the "trail" before I added everything up and decided to turn back. Did I mention it ominously started to rain, thunder, and hail?
I ended up scouting out a delightful campsite about 300 yards due south-west of aforementioned saddle trail intersection, with a level pitch, an existing fire ring, decent wind shelter, a nearby water source, and even no mosquitoes! I believe on the 7.5' topo, this campsite would be approximately where the unnamed stream begins.
In the morning, I packed up, hiked out, and got home to Santa Cruz at about noon. Though I didn't end up taking the route I had in mind, it was quite an adventure and a much-needed break from civilization. I also got to meet a very nice couple, Terry and Helen, who were aiming for a Warren Lake out-and-back dayhike (!) -- we crossed paths several times before turning back at roughly the same point. I was impressed how tenaciously they followed the trail, even though they had just a crude map and no prior experience on it!
I'd love to hear if this trail report was useful to anyone -- this is sort of an experiment to see how effective blogging is for making easy-to-find trail reports. Oh, and I guess it serves as my first blog entry too. More trail reports as I hike 'em.
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