Carly Kovacik and I slogged up to Amphitheater Lake during mid September, a high alpine body of water, that we subsequently traversed around to the left. We then ascended toward a band of cliffs that would give us access to the upper slopes of Disappointment Peak. Six to twelve inches of snow fell across this area during the past 24 hours, but footing was pretty firm and trail breaking was no problem. We reached the cliffs and started observing cumulus clouds bubbling upwards. There was a chance that snow showers and possible thunderstorms would develop, and given our exposed location, we decided not to advance to the summit of Disappointment Peak. It turns out the weather progressively improved as the day advanced, and weather impacts on a summit attempt would have been a non-issue. Nevertheless, we had to act on the observations at hand, and those observations said "go down."
We made the best of our situation and completed a 17 mile hike back to our car, trekking past Bradley Lake followed by Taggart Lake. After those lakes we reached the main park road, hiked north, and then cut west from the park road across Lupine Meadows to our vehicle. Photogenic views were ever-present during our low elevation trek, but unfortunately still no Grizzly sightings.
Google map location is here.
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