Mt. Lamarck (+Darwin Canyon bailout) – August 22-23, 2025
It felt like I had angered the gods. I had been looking forward to this hike all summer but instead of watching the sunset from one of my favorite places in the Sierra, I was hunkered down at 12,000 ft above sea level, praying that the dozens of lightning strikes overhead wouldn’t strike my tent. Weather in the Sierra Nevada isn’t as fickle as some might have you think, but when storms are in the forecast it can be hard to tell whether they materialize as just ominous clouds or something more.
On this trip, I had planned to head into Darwin Canyon and climb Mt. Lamarck and Mt. Goethe. It was to be a three-day trip and I had even taken off work for it — a rarity for me. In the week leading up to the trip, most weather models pointed to typical afternoon monsoon moisture over most of the Sierra. My luck this summer had been good so far — forecasted rain often didn’t come — so I figured I would push my luck, get most of my hiking done early in the day but otherwise proceed as planned.
On the first day, I got a late start from the North Lake trailhead and didn’t hit the trail until around 9AM. By the time I made it to the switchbacks above Upper Lamarck Lake, I could see angry clouds forming in the distance over Lamarck Col. If I had to do this part over again, I’d have probably waited at the treeline at the upper lake for as long as I needed to until all of the storm systems passed. Instead, I pressed on against my better judgment. A light drizzle greeted me in the wide, flat expanse of sand and boulders just below Lamarck Col on its north side. I could push on and hope to make it into Darwin Canyon before any adverse weather hit, but I had really wanted to photograph sunrise on the summit of Mt. Lamarck and would be much better positioned to do that by camping on the north side.
By the time I finished setting up my tent against some large boulders, a heavy downpour of hail started. The time between flashes of lightning and claps of thunder narrowed until there was no gap at all. In hindsight, it’s hard to say objectively how much danger I was really in. I was surrounded by peaks and ridgelines on all sides, several of which I did witness get struck. I was in a relatively wide open field, but there were large rock formations ensuring that my tent was not the tallest thing around. I was freaked out enough to start thinking about my plan of action if I felt static electricity start to build in my tent. In the end, the first storm passed after an hour; I went out to explore the hail-covered landscape, watched a group of four head over Lamarck Col (their goal was Mt. Darwin the next day); a second storm cell hit about an hour later. The swirling clouds made for interesting sunset views from Lamarck Col.
My plan for the second day was to summit Mt. Lamarck at sunrise and then head into Darwin Canyon and summit Mt. Goethe for sunset. Camp in Darwin Canyon would be significantly less exposed to the elements than my camp on the first night, but the forecast called for even worse storms that second day. I decided I didn’t want to sit through another storm, especially since my summit Goethe summit bid would likely have to be axed. Instead, I decided to summit Mt. Lamarck at sunrise and then cut the trip short.
Sunrise over the Evolution range.
Bailing a day early was definitely the right decision: by 9 AM, angry-looking clouds were already building over Lamarck Col and I heard the first claps of thunder when I was back at Upper Lamarck Lake. While I’m disappointed I couldn’t accomplish my planned itinerary, Mt. Goethe shot up to the top of my to-do list for next summer and I can’t wait to go back.
—Justin
