In the high, rugged region of the Sierra Nevada just east of Muir Pass lies a collection of peaks named by Theodore Solomons after famous evolutionary scientists of the time. I’m sure you could look up the exact set of peaks that comprise the Evolution Group and which were named by Solomons himself, but a quick search reveals it’s most of the named peaks south of and including Mount Lamarck, north of Mount Thompson, west of the Sierra crest, and east of the John Muir Trail. Mount Mendel and Mount Darwin will be the most recognizable for those who paid attention in high school biology, the other six or so seem to be a collection of evolutionary scientists whose findings were either too basic or too complicated to be included in the AP Biology curriculum.
Traversing all of these peaks (the definition of “all” changes depending on which variation one does) is a somewhat popular ridgeline link-up called the Evolution Traverse, a Peter Croft creation. All of these peaks except for two (Mount Spencer and Mount Warlow) are on the SPS list, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the other two were adventurous and enjoyable climbs despite not making the prestigious list. Maybe if it had been expanded to 250 peaks they would have made the cut.
After a successful and easier-than-expected outing up Royce Peak and Merriam Peak the previous day, I plotted a slightly more aggressive two-peak outing today to climb two of these peaks: Mount Haeckel and Mount Wallace. I still couldn’t tell you what Wallace and Haeckel contributed to modern science to have their names attached to these rock spires.
This outing would be out of the Lake Sabrina Trailhead which despite having visited both the North Lake Trailhead (once) and the South Lake Trailhead (many times), I had yet to see. I headed off early and hit the trail just before 6:30. The first part of this trail wasn’t much, hiking around the south short of Lake Sabrina before climbing up into the forest. But before long I was at scenic Blue Lake where there were a ton of backpackers just waking up.
The unnamed peak just east of Topsy Turvy Lake, from the unnamed lakes below. I continued up, the trail getting more scenic as it climbed out of the forest, with better views of the high peaks in every direction.
Soon I was at scenic Sailor Lake, with aptly-named Picture Peak behind, and Mount Haeckel behind and to the right of that. The trail ended here, so I set out cross country for Moonlight Lake. I passed another couple of hikers, though neither of us seemed much interested in stopping to chat.
Beautiful turquoise Moonlight Lake. I stopped for a rest and to drink the Starbucks Doubleshot I had brought with me. After a couple of days of getting up early I thought it’d be helpful to have a little boost before the hard part of the day began. Secor’s description of this route says that above Echo Lake the climb is 1,000’ of talus before gaining the route, so I didn’t expect it to be easy.
Moonlight Lake from above. It wasn’t too bad to get around the shore of the lake and start heading up towards Echo Lake. There was some talus, but interspersed with some easier walkingo
Above Echo Lake the going got tougher, as expected. The route became much steeper and was just climbing through talus all the way from Echo Lake to the small lake just south of Mount Haeckel.
After about 45 minutes of climbing through the boulders I reached the tarn just below Mount Haeckel. The mountain looked impressive and intimidating from this angle. The East Ridge route ascends the left side of the (south) face seen here. I continued across the talus, climbed the sand slope that rises the highest, and then cut left into the orange rocks seen here.
Once in the orange rock there was an easy band of broken rocks in the face climbing up and right that went at class 2/3. When I reached the top I was in between two spires of seemingly unclimbable rock. I guessed that the west one was higher and set off back down looking for a way. I managed to find a very convoluted route that climbed 15’ out of the chute, stepped across a large gap between two boulders, crawled under another overhanging boulder, and wrapped around to the west face of the peak before climbing up easy class 3 rocks to the summit. Fortunately, the summit register here confirmed it was the high point!
The view south from the summit. Mount Wallace is the peak in the foreground.
The Palisades behind Mount Thompson and Mount Powell to the south.
Mount Fiske and the Fiske Glacier, which is almost entirely covered by rockfall.
Mount Fiske, Mount Goddard, and Mount Huxley to the southwest.
The very impressive looking Mount Goddard.
Looking west towards the John Muir Trail. Evolution Valley is the rounded, wooded valley at left. The very square-looking mountain is Mount McGee, I believe.
The impressive Mount Darwin to the north.
Mount Haeckel has a bit of funny history behind it. Secor describes the second ascent party’s climb of this peak where they were very surprised to find another party on the summit, who had (quietly) climbed another route and topped out only 15 minutes earlier. They were even more surprised to learn they had climbed the wrong mountain – they intended to climb Mount Darwin.
There was no hope of signing into or reading through the summit register. The ammo can register had lost its top and the contents were completely waterlogged. So I had a small snack before setting off to reverse my circuitous route to the summit. I tried to take a different route by going directly southwest but found a cliff I couldn’t get down, so I repeated the climb-under-step-across-class-3-downclimb move to the safety of the broken rock bands.
The view of Mount Wallace from high up on Mount Haeckel. The traverse sticks to this side of the crest, just a bit below the ridgeline.
Most of the traverse was easy sandy ledges like this interspersed with short sections of climbing up or down searching for the next ledge to cross.
A ledgeless section.
Looking back towards Mount Haeckel. The climb up Mount Haeckel was definitely harder than the route up Mount Wallace.
Looking back north from nearer to the summit of Mount Wallace.
Searching for a way up to the summit rocks of Mount Wallace, and enjoying impressive views of the Evolution Lakes. I tried to stick to the crest, but the way was blocked by difficult rocks, so I had to cut across the east face about 50 vertical feet below the summit and climb up past a couple of chockstones to gain the summit. Here, there were two rocks sitting in a L shape. The summit register was on the lower part, but the vertical part of the L was obviously the summit. It was difficult to climb, though, requiring a foot smear and beached-whale mantle move. But I did it, not content to just be “close enough,” before carefully reversing the move and sitting down to enjoy the view.
Looking south towards Mount Powell and the Palisades.
Black Giant and the Black Divide.
Looking north towards Evolution Valley, Mount Haeckel, and Mount Darwin.
The summit register on Mount Wallace was still intact and had some fun entries, including one from famous American climbers Jim Donini and George Lowe.
And a two year old!
There were a bunch of entries from folks doing the Evolution Traverse, a lot more than I expected. I added my name to this little piece of history before setting off back down. I climbed down the slightly more direct Southeast Slope route, which required traversing south off of the peak and finding a suitable chute for descending. The rock on this part of the mountain was awful, which may explain why the next peak to the south is called “Crumbly Spire.” I took care to pick the least steep chute to descend, but I was knocking down small avalanches of rocks with each step. The steep upper 400’ of the descent was quite an adventure and very slow. But soon enough I reached the less steep section around 12,500’and it was just loose and not-so-steep. I sped up a bit and reached the small tarn above Echo Lake before rejoining the path I had taken up through the talus and hiked down to Echo Lake.
Echo Lake. I took a ever-so-slightly more direct route down to Moonlight Lake, aided by the increased visibility one has when viewing the slopes from above instead of below.
Moonlight Lake, again. I was quite happy to find the short sections of grass here and there, a welcome relief from the ankle and knee workout of the talus. After another short section of cross country travel I was back on the trial at Sailor Lake.
Picture Peak and Mount Haeckel above Sailor Lake. I talked to a couple of seemingly lost backpackers here and pointed them in the direction of a few campsites I had spotted. They asked about my day and I told them and they said they were thinking about climbing Mount Haeckel the next day.
The east face of Mount Darwin high above. I hiked down the trail, passing a few groups of fishermen out and about. But it was mostly not too busy out.
Mount Emerson to the north.
One more view up to the mountains, with Mount Haeckel in the middle, before heading into the forest near Lake Sabrina.
I reached my car around 5:45 and changed into sandals and got a drink before getting in to drive back north. Another good day in the books climbing this great pair of peaks! While they had been much tougher than Merriam Peak and Royce Peak the previous day, I didn’t find the outing too difficult.
I headed back for Mammoth to rest a bit and plan the next day’s adventure.