Quick summary: 20 mile roundtrip - trailhead -> ingalls, Jack Creek, Van Epps, Esmeralda Basin -> trailhead. Trail impossible on backside, GPS only. Also, a little creepy because I saw no one for about 4 hours in some pretty remote country where they still haven't found the kid murderer. May still be hiding out in there and if you take this route you will see why it is pretty reasonable that he could be in there hiding. For what its worth, I didn't see a single boot print, recent fire circle, broken twigs or grass down from any humans in the entire valley. Plenty of big bear prints -- but no signs that anyone else had been in there this year including search parties for that guy.
Detailed: Planned out a long trail run/hike to get some mileage, vertical, and time on feet in for an upcoming ultra race. Despite hiking everywhere else seemingly, I had never done Ingalls-- the legendary crowds always had scared me off. Given the state of the trail in this loop, figured I would leave a few notes.
I left Esmeralda Trailhead (Lake Ingalls) at 5:45AM -- FYI, plenty of spots early -- not the case later in the day, but this is a very busy trial head. Drop toliet in decent shape, ample room for overflow parking down the road.
Weather: classic awesome summer day. Clear, cool, damp from morning dew -- a bit windy given the shift to onshore flow on the West side.
Climb to Ingalls... a little runnable in sections, but mostly an uphill climb. Last few scrambles up to Ingalls were fun. Crested Ingalls basin ~ 6:50, mountain goat chomping and uninterested in me. Ingalls lake proper by 7:30. Sceneary around there is epic -- sun rising behind Stuart and all the things, this is Enchantments level stuff without the larches. Took me a few min to figure out the scramble along the left shore (northwest). There was still a bit of snow between the water edge and large boulders. Melting had created a bit of a bergschrund effect that was pretty deep. Snow was super slippery and combined with slope angle almost guaranteed an early morning slide into the water, so I found a route higher. This route finding persisted nearly the entire length of the shore. Switching back and forth from the actual strail to higher boulders and scrambles to make it around. Totally doable with a little awareness, but slow going. In another week -- likely a non issue. Hard to gauge camping spots here. maybe southside/east side on the slick rock or in the meadow before hitting Ingalls. Its pretty slim pickings up there for campsites despite popularity.
disclaimer: I am a very good navigator, rarely use GPS. This was humbling.
Made it to the end of the Lake and thus started my afternoon of route finding. Immediately got off trail 50 yards from the Lake. Meant to take the direct route to Stuart Pass, ended up following down to the valley an picking up Ingalls creek trail back up the hill to Stuart pass. Over Stuart Pass into Jack Creek Trail -- things are fine for about .5 mile then it falls apart. Trail hasn't been maintained and so it sort of disappears into the woods. You can follow it for another .5 then its GPS time. rolling down valley through thick understory switch backs trail was really hard, if not impossible to follow. Somewhat runnable when the trail was obvious.
Once you hit the burn area -- forget it. you are walking, crawling, climbing, scrambling, tripping, falling, and getting stabbed with broken snags and sticks for the next 3.5 hours. I clocked a mile segment at 48 minutes to give you some sense and I was trying to trot a bit when I could. Its a war zone. This burn was several years back an the problem is that now the understory has grown back and obliterated any sense of the trail. You are bushwhacking, falling and stumbling for miles. I followed it all the way down the valley got within about .5 of the trail junction to head up Van Epps and said screw it and just started going cross country to meet on the other side. river was manageable, I dunked my shoes several times. oh well.
the trail up Van Epps all the way to the jeep trail near the Van Epps mine was just as bad, you are basically going cross-country. The trail is completely gone.
Once on the rocky Jeep trail, things are fine (uphill but fine). started to run again up hill to Van Epps Pass. From there, navigate the roads and pickup 1226.2 under the shadow of Ingalls Peak and ride that all the way to Esmeralda Basin. Very runnable, easy to follow--- got a good flow going here. Plenty of water to fill up.
Some campers at Esmeralda Basin, cool place -- a few nice big spots, some water in the outflows -- the pond will dry up in a week or two and I think water will be tough here right be camp. long hot climb to the top of the ridge under Fortune Peak (super impressive scree field -- basically the entire mountain is scree). Crazy awesome Rainier views on the backside head back to Esmeralda Trailhead. After some switch backs on unstable rock, very runnable and downhill joyride all the way to the car for a few miles.
took me about 6.5 hours start to finish which is about 2 hours longer than it should have for vert and distance.
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