Evolution
Basin 2013
August 16 – South Lake to Dusy Basin
August 17 – Dusy Basin to Big Pete Meadow
August 18 – Big Pete Meadow to Helen Lake
August 20 – Evolution Lake to Darwin Canyon
August 21 – Darwin Canyon to North Lake
This
year's trip was impacted by the weather. We had planned on making
a loop over Bishop Pass and Muir Pass, through Evolution Basin, and up
into Darwin Canyon. Then we would cross the crest over Darwin Col
and traverse above Lake Sabrina back over to Tyee Lakes and back to our
vehicle at South Lake. The weather started out good for the first
few days, but afternoon thunderstorms started coming in on the day we
got to Helen Lake. This weather still didn't slow us down as it
followed the typical pattern of late afternoon thunderstorms with good
weather in the morning. However, once we were in Darwin Canyon
the rain started in early afternoon, and the day we were to leave
Darwin Canyon the rain started up in the early morning hours.
Although it had stopped by the time we hiked that day, it was still
threatening. On top of this, Steve's tent rain fly had an issue
with the window separating from the fly leaving a hole. This was
repaired with duct tape but it was uncertain how long it would
hold. Plus we felt like we were spending all of our downtime in
our tents and were getting sick of the inside of our tents! All
of this combined to make us decide to bail from the route over Lamarck
Col, which we had done in 2002. Although we had a relaxed
itinerary after Darwin Col and could have afforded a full rest day, the
feeling was that it was best to just get out. So this trip
covered only trail and off-trail that we had already been done (also
covered by the 2002 PCT pages here).
