Cottonwood Creek 06/12

Jeremy flew out for an extended weekend loop out of Horseshoe Meadow. Our rough plan was to take the old cross-country route up the South Fork, try to hit Mt Langley on Saturday, and check out the Cottonwood Lakes. It turned out that we missed the turnoff up the South Fork almost immediately and ended up following the normal trail. (We found the use-trail on the way out. It is a hard left about twenty yards after the first creek crossing.) We passed the first lake and climbed the shoulder to get a view of Cirque Lake and the upper South Fork basin. From there we bushwhacked down to the upper lake and camped on a sandy spot at the East end.

Saturday morning, we walked north through the trees to Long Lake and climbed New Army Pass to make an assault on Mt. Langley. The traverse along the crest wasn't too bad, but the climb up the Langley massif is all sandy gullies and slow going. As we reached a small ridge below the final climb, Sawyer made it clear that he wasn't feeling well and his feet were hurting. So we turned back; another time, I guess. We instead climbed from Army Pass out to the end of the ridge separating the Cottonwood and Long Lake cirques. Back down the pass, we had lunch and a nap at Long Lake before circling around to the Cottonwood Lakes side. We found a really nice campsite alongside the stream at the inlet to Lake 2.

On Sunday we had some time to explore before heading out so we looped up around the rest of the Cottonwood Lakes. We followed the trail along Lake 4 and up to the high lakes 5 and 6. From Lake 6 we simply crossed the shoulder into the top of Lake 3. From there we bushwhacked again up to Muir Lake and followed the trail all the way back down.