Ionian Basin redux via Lake Sabrina – July 23-27, 2025
A return to one of my favorite places in the Sierra. Last winter in the throes of trip planning, I managed to convince my friend Paulina to join me for a 5-day loop hike through Ionian Basin. We planned to enter via Echo Col and exit via Haeckel Col, starting and ending at Lake Sabrina to avoid any need for hitchhiking or car shuttling.
Day 1: Sabrina Lake to Echo Col
We set off bright and early from the Lake Sabrina trailhead. It was still quite cold at 6:30 AM and would remain so for most of this trip. While the lakeside traverse and switchbacks up to Blue Lake take a bit of time, worsened by the too-heavy loads we were carrying, most of the early hours of this day passed by in a blur. We took a nice long break at Blue Lake and another once we reached Moonlight Lake.
Moonlight Lake reminds me a bit of Jade Lake in the Cascades, its waters fueled by the remnants of glacial ice further up the drainage. It’s curious that Echo Lake, which is further up than its lower neighbor and should by virtue of its location directly beneath perennial snow and icefields (however small they may be nowadays) have the same color, is more of a deep, dark blue. At Echo Lake, we took a break to add more layers. At this point, the forecasted storm clouds were hanging over the Sierra crest and we could feel rain drops periodically. We debated for quite a while over what to do. Plan A was to try making it over Echo Col as we had originally planned. The danger here was a difficult retreat if thunderstorms were to strike. Plan B was to start the traverse over to Echo Col and set up camp on one of the numerous bivy sites I knew existed from my trip last year.
In the end, we didn’t reach a consensus and just decided to set off and see what happened. By the time we crossed a cairned creek and the last of the suitable campsites, the sun had started to reemerge. We begrudgingly crossed the remaining snowfields and took a break below the final push to the top. This day is probably the worst I’ve felt in the backcountry in a while. Despite how many years I’ve been doing this, I never seem to eat enough calories on big days like these. I was exhausted and nauseous, only buoyed by the fact that we didn’t have much further to go.
The line we chose up to the col was, to put it briefly, not a good one. It consisted of steep, loose talus and scree, and we set off a couple of rockfalls in the awkward maneuvering to more solid ground. On my first visit here, I ascended further to climber’s right where the rock was very solid; I’d recommend doing that to anyone reading this. Eventually, we made it to the more solid rock beneath the col and made short work of the final moves, where we were greeted on the south side by the largest concentration of Sky Pilots I’ve ever seen in the Sierra.
We descended about 300 ft to a flat patch of dirt and grass with nearby snow for melting. The only good part about this descent was the gorgeous backdrop of peaks with purple clouds; my battery was otherwise completely spent at this point. We slowly setup camp and ate dinner in a mostly pleasant silence. Because I seem to be a glutton for sleep deprivation, I decided to try taking some Milky Way shots which occupied me for another couple of hours.
Day 2: Echo Col to Black Giant Pass
We slept in pretty late the next day and waited until the sun hit our tent before starting to pack up. The late start wasn’t an issue since we’d only planned to go as far as Black Giant (or Black Divide if we were in good spirits and the weather cooperated). I was personally in much better spirits with a solid night of rest and knowing that the terrain would be comparatively easier today.
The descent down to the JMT was relatively slow-going due to steep talus and the necessity to navigate around cliffbands below Lake 11428. We only stayed on the JMT for a couple of miles before peeling off towards Black Giant Pass, but it was a glorious couple of miles without having to watch one’s footing or worry about impact damage to knees and ankles.
Just beneath Black Giant Pass, we again came to an impasse as the storm clouds overhead seemed to reach their climax. Paulina was convinced we should push on and over Ionian Pass to get to Black Divide. My concern was that the densest storm clouds appeared to be concentrated right over that particular basin; if that ended up being the case, we would likely have to axe our planned sunset summit of Black Divide Peak, making a foray into that basin pointless. We decided to just camp at Black Giant Pass and potentially summit Black Giant that evening if the weather cleared or otherwise defer the sidequest until the next morning.
The weather cleared enough to have a stellar moody sunset, but we didn’t end up summiting Black Giant due to concerns that the payoff would not be worth it. After all, low clouds still hugged the peaks, a relative rarity here in the High Sierra. We turned in for the night and I set an alarm to try and shoot some Milky Way photos if the clouds ever cleared up.
Day 3: Black Giant Pass to Swan Lake (with side trip up Black Giant)
The next morning, we woke up to photograph sunrise and then promptly went right back to sleep. Paulina was too tired to join me in my quest to summit Black Giant but I was determined to succeed after not having enough energy to do the side trip last summer. I set off around 9 AM and made excellent time with a light day pack. The west slope of Black Giant was blanketed in Alpine Gold (Hulsea algida) and Sky Pilots which slowed my pace dramatically. I’m confident I could have made it to the summit in 45 minutes without the numerous photo breaks, but I took my time with my photography since I knew we were only moving camp about three miles.
The upper reaches of the mountain contained a couple of false summits which felt like they would never end. Eventually, though, the views opened up dramatically and I had a clear line of sight down LeConte Canyon all the way to the Palisades. I stayed on the summit for nearly an hour before heading back to camp. On the way down, I was surprised to meet a group of three who were doing a day trip from their camp near Wanda Lake. Unfortunately, I might have rattled them by plunge-stepping and accidentally knocking a rock loose. While it wasn’t in their fall line and stopped after maybe 20-30 ft of rolling, but some of their party had already seemed to not be thrilled with the loose rocks and I’m sure the rockfall only added to their apprehension. We chatted a bit about itineraries – they were doing a lollipop from Lamarck Col, though I didn’t quite catch their intended return route – before they disappeared over a ridgeline and I was back at camp.
We slowly packed up and made the descent all the way to Chasm Lake. Here, storm clouds greeted us like an old friend. It was cold and windy with some intermittent drops of rain, but just like all the other days so far we managed to avoid any thunderstorms or serious rainfall. The next couple of hours might be the slowest I’ve backpacked in a long while. The altitude in combination with cliffs along Lake 11837 made for very slow going and the constantly drifting of the clouds made it difficult to stay comfortable without constantly removing and adding layers.
Finally, we were at Swan Lake and setting up camp on the only flat patch of grass we could find. I wasn’t feel great due to undereating again, so Paulina did most of the tent set up while I wandered over to some snowmelt to filter water for us. We ate a quick dinner and then waited for what we hoped would be a great sunset. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans and low-lying clouds drifted in and out of the lake basin we were in all evening.
