You will find trip reports to the Evolution area of Kings Canyon in the high Sierra Nevada of California.  This area is named as such because all of the peaks are thematically named after famous scientists: Darwin, Mendel, Wallace, Spencer, Huxley, and so on.  The region is distinctive in that it is possible to spend days remaining entirely above the 10,900 foot level, enjoying some of the most breathtaking vistas in the world, let alone California. 

The area has been popularized by the term Ansel Adams gave it: The Range of Light.

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Images are my own and you are free to download, copy and distribute, just so long as no money is involved with how you use these images.  Images are in JPEG format.

PLEASE NOTE EXTENSIVE CHANGES ON THE LAMARCK COL TRAVERSE FOR 2009!

August 2009 - Over Echo Col and out Lamarck Col. Echo Col to Lamarck.

August 2008 - Over Lamarck Col, McGee Canyon, Davis Lakes and Out. Lamarck Col Again.

September 2006 - Over Piute Pass, Italy Pass and Back again.

September 2005 - Over Lamarck Col and out via Snowtongue Pass

August 2004 -  Lamarck Col in search of trout

August 2003 - Piute Pass and out via Alpine Col

August 2002 - Over Lamarck Col and back via Piute Pass

For the Year 2001 trip over Echo Col and returning via Lamarck Col, click HERE.

For the 2000 trip by Davis Lakes, go  HERE.

Trips made in 1997 and 1998 over Lamarck Col into the Evolution Region.. 

As a reminder, please leave domesticated pets at home. The Wilderness is no place for Fido or Fifi.  Park rules specifically exclude pets for a reason: dogs degrade the environment and the experience for everyone.  If I see you with your pet in a wilderness area I will report you to the nearest Ranger Station and you will have to pay a substantial fine for violating permit rules.

NOTES FOR BACKCOUNTRY TRAVEL FOR NEWBIES

Folks acting on articles printed in Outside magazine and such should pay special attention to the following. Although the California Wilderness areas are by no means as savage and rough as anything you may find in places like Alaska, wilderness areas nevertheless demand respect and attentiveness for personal safety and for the sanctity of the area itself.

Bearcans - In no place in California are firearms necessary or even desired. Wildlife can be handled with proper attitude and procedures, and this includes close encounters with bears, deer in rut, skunks and the rarely seen wolverine. Take the bear-can, even to altitude -- it protects against marmots and the oddly named bushy-tailed woodrat as well as bruin. If you are antsy, douse your stuff with cayenne -- at the moment, bears and other critters dislike it.

A pack of coyotes lives near the high lake on the way to Snowtongue Pass. LEAVE THEM ALONE AND THEY WILL LEAVE YOU ALONE. Coyotes rarely mess with human beings. They do make the evenings lively with music, however.

Navigation -- Leave the lousy map that shows the entire Kings Canyon park at home and fork over the bucks for the 7 minute maps from REI or the TOPO! program if you plan on leaving trail. Bear in mind that since all maps were drawn, global warming has shut off the spigot to many incidental streams and changed lake configurations. You simply will never find a lake with the exact shape as found on the maps now extant; they ALL have changed.

The large maps simply do not show enough topo detail to travel safely and effectively backcountry. They exist for people who stick to trail only.

The key is research your passage before you attempt backcountry travel, especially if you are travelling alone. An inch on a map can turn into hours of frustration and potentially life-threatening situations for the unprepared.

The "lake" on Darwin bench is now only six inches deep and barely one hundred feet wide at the greatest point.

The Lamarck Col route no longer has a sign at the cross-over point, and the beginning of the route is sketchy. Although the route has become vastly better marked, by myself and others with ducks and clearing, the route remains sometimes invisible, with the assumption that a reasonably experienced person armed with a good 7 minute map will see the obvious way to proceed. Expect to add hours to travel if you cannot distinguish between a fifty foot rise and a five hundred-foot ridgeback and your map does not show this kind of detail.

Popularity -- The greybeards among us are all astonished at the wildly increased numbers of human traffic through this section of the wilderness. It has practically become a standard route to do Lamarck Col down to the PCT and out Bishop Pass the way a previous generation used to do Italy to Afganistan and on to India. 9/11, an idiotic foreign policy and high airline prices have put the kibosh on that kind of travel. Do get a permit from White Mountain Ranger Station in Bishop. Those permits alert the rangers to the numbers passing through their district and enable them to secure funding for all kinds of needed projects.

But if solitude is what you are looking for, you will not get it here, not any longer.

The Lamarck glacier, because of unusual weather patterns in 2009, the glacier is now about as wide as usual, although steeper. The old notch entering the canyon remains at the end of the long straight castelment to the far left, and the old sign welcoming you into the park is still there for those going in either direction.

The references Steve Roper, The Climbers Guide to the High Sierra, Secor's High Sierra, and Sierra South should all be consulted in their most current edtions before doing any backcountry.

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