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I routinely have great luck in the Carson-Iceberg and Emigrant Wilderness areas. Cherry Creek Canyon in particular has been utterly empty the times I have traveled it. Diggler is right on the northern areas too. Anyone ever been to Keddie Peak?

Michael Graupe wrote:Nice photo, Chief. But I would not consider this place very remote.

Odd... 16 miles in over a 12k pass and this is not remote?

Been here over 19 times in the past three years and have yet to see anyone on or near the North East bank/cove.

The only folks I have ever seen here (twice), were actually transiting through to the western side.

Do you know where this is btw?

Of course I know where this is. I have climbed pretty much all the peaks in this area including the one in the photo. If you go over Cox Col it is only about 7 miles and it took me less than 4 hours to get there. I have been there many fewer times than you but found it to be a quite popular backpacking destination. Maybe this was coincidence.

Under my definition of remote I would think that this area (SE side of Mt. Goddard) fits the bill better.



If this landscape is a little too barren, here is another remote lake in an awesome area. I'll let you figure out where this is.

Michael Graupe wrote:
If this landscape is a little too barren, here is another remote lake in an awesome area. I'll let you figure out where this is.

Hey...isn't that Mer... uh.. never mind.

I have to agree with those who nominate Blue Canyon and the area around Tunemah Peak as the most remote and also least visited. Coincidentally, just this morning I spoke with Allan Clyde, operator of Clyde Pack Outfit, who runs packtrains in this area. He informed me that the Tehipite fire in 2008 cleared out the brush and blowdown which made the Blue Canyon trail difficult to follow. In addition, the USFS and USPS reworked the trail extensively this year to the point where he can take pack trains far up into Blue Canyon for the first time in a decade. So Blue Canyon is not as remote as it used to be.
As a close second, Kendrick Creek, upstream from Edyth Lake in northern Yosemite is remote, difficult to reach and lightly visited.

Michael Graupe wrote:If this landscape is a little too barren, here is another remote lake in an awesome area. I'll let you figure out where this is.

Not so remote that it doesn't have its crowds. The guy in the back wasn't even in the same party.

Michael Graupe...
Of course you've been there. Therefore it is not a remote area. Only 10% or less of the population utilize Cox Col as an access to the area I posted. Most utilize the PC T/H. Via that route, 17-18 miles and most are "Passing through" doing a 2-3 week cirque nav.

Just cuz a very rare few have the ability to go screaming at lightning speeds to/through any area and spend less than half a day there and see someone, well. Spend some quality time, 2-3 days in any deep area, smell the "Shooting Stars", throw some flies and feel the goodness of it. Then you will have a better op to see how many few actually visit that area.

Another area to south east of the the pic I posted, which I will not post a photo of and is 18 miles in, is also an area that sees very few humans. It is accessible through the notch/col on the right of the pic below...

There are some bigass Golden's in the small lakes there as well.

BTW, The valley SE of Goddard in your Pic, holds five peaks that I took my "At Risk-Gangbanger" kids to on a regular basis out of Courtright via Hell for Sure Pass.

Some of the Sierra's most remote (feeling) areas are in the "Bogus Thunder Mountains" of the Northern Sierra and not the Southern Sierra.

sierraman wrote: In addition, the USFS and USPS reworked the trail extensively this year to the point where he can take pack trains far up into Blue Canyon for the first time in a decade.

Yeah (heavy sarcasm).

Dougb wrote:
As far as favorite places go, once the internet was invented, forget it. There's always gonna be someone who will blab about it, and then the fire-making, trash leaving, shampoo-hair-in-the-lake crowd will follow. The last time I was almost back from my favorite place, I met a group heading in for it. Someone devoted a whole chapter of his guidebook to it (my favorite place).

I'm pretty sure this crush of visitation happened well before the internet. Increased use coincided with more people getting interested in the outdoors, and more people having disposable time and money, and more guidebooks.

Many times I've seen favorite, relatively unknown places experience a boom in visitation, after a guidebook was written. In the Adirondacks, Peaked Mountain had no real trail till a guidebook disclosed the area in the late 70s; in New Mexico, Tent Rocks was little-visited till the "Hikes near Santa Fe" guide appeared in the 80s.

It's the way of the world.

Well, yes to the guidebooks. No to the fact that more people are going to the outdoors. The fact of the matter is that far fewer are going to the outdoors even though we have a higher population than ever. National Parks have seen HUGE drops in numbers of people. Anywhere from 0 to 50% and the average nation wide is around 20%.

Guidebooks have simply spread the number of people out some. Most places that used to be BURIED on weekends here in WA st. don't have as many as they used to, but the back country average has improoved due to said guidebooks. Go anywhere the guidebooks don't mention and you won't see a soul.

Check out Snow Lake Statistics. Average used to be higher. Now people have spread out throughout the I-90 and US 2 corridor to a greater extent and the total # of hikers is slightly lower.

Sorry, can't find the article posted on the snoqualamie mt. baker national forest service website anymore detailing this fact. Does anyone else remember reading this article and can find the link? Bah, hate it when I misplace a good article to argue with. Makes a rather hollow arguement without the data to back it up... argg.

Yea, yea I know this is a CA site, but the above is still applicable. Maybe in CA the #'s have increased, don't know since I don't live there, but here in WA St. they have gone down even though we have seen a dramatic rise in population.

30-40% fewer folks have been going up Ranier for example in the last 5-10 years.

40-50% fewer have been going to North Cascades National Park. Olympic National Park has remained about the same though.

Brian

MoapaPk wrote:

Dougb wrote:
As far as favorite places go, once the internet was invented, forget it. There's always gonna be someone who will blab about it, and then the fire-making, trash leaving, shampoo-hair-in-the-lake crowd will follow. The last time I was almost back from my favorite place, I met a group heading in for it. Someone devoted a whole chapter of his guidebook to it (my favorite place).

I'm pretty sure this crush of visitation happened well before the internet. Increased use coincided with more people getting interested in the outdoors, and more people having disposable time and money, and more guidebooks.

Many times I've seen favorite, relatively unknown places experience a boom in visitation, after a guidebook was written. In the Adirondacks, Peaked Mountain had no real trail till a guidebook disclosed the area in the late 70s; in New Mexico, Tent Rocks was little-visited till the "Hikes near Santa Fe" guide appeared in the 80s.

It's the way of the world.

Maybe fewer people are visiting national parks in the recession, but the free areas are getting increased visitation. And the number of people visiting national parks says nothing about the number going into the back country. What fraction of the visitors to Zion each year go farther than the 1-mile paved trails?

But more important, the time context of the original point was not given. The boom in back-country travel started in the 70s.

My 2c regarding Sierra's remoteness from an ousider's point of view (Boston).

Last year we didn't look at the map in time (stupid me) and instead of crossing the Snowtongue Pass we went over the col to the NW (loose and steep) and found ourself at the beautiful and frozen Payne lake. It wasn't that far to walk to Piute trail via Saddleback lake and Golden Trout lakes but it felt that people rarely go there - we did not see anybody.

Another time (maybe 6 years ago?) we did a chunk of Roper's route from Merriam lake north via Bear lakes and exiting at Mammoth. We saw exactly 1 guy during our 4 days off trail.

Both times it was a bit early in the season (late June/early July). Anyway, my impression of Sierra that it's far from being crowded. Just need to stay away from those trails.