Years ago I did a backcountry ski loop from North Lake to Lake Sabrina where our group had a magnificent telemark ski descent of the east slope of Mt. Goddard. For several years, I had talked to different people about repeating this trip. Last month's Mugelnoos described one variation of this great tour.

Earlier this spring, my friend Armando Menocal called me and suggested we do the Evolution Loop, a longer version of the earlier trip. The new route was described in John Moynier's new book 'Backcountry Skiing in the High Sierra'. On the morning of 2 May, Armando, Brian Johnson, Jeannie Heltzel, and I (Rich Henke) met at the Lake Sabrina trailhead. There was no snow cover at the lower elevations. When we did reach snow we lost the trail from Lake Sabrina which required lots of bushwhacking. Hopefully, future ski trips will not start or end at Lake Sabrina. Near Dingleberry Lake at 10,400 feet, we started skiing and had good conditions all the way to Echo Col. We skied to just below the pass and used a previous party's footsteps (I wonder who they were?) to cross the pass. Our first camp was at the lake at 11,400 feet just south of Echo Col. Armando broke through the slush up to his knees while crossing the lake which made dry boots an impossibility for him for the remainder of the trip.

On day 2 we crossed Muir Pass and Solomons Pass to enter Ionian Basin rather than use Black Giant Pass as we did on my previous trip. We camped at two tiny lakes at 12,300 feet, on the east slope of Mt. Goddard. It had been cloudy most ofthe day so the afternoon snow on Goddard was still fIrm. We skied to the top and found the sign-inregister which allowed me to sign in for this climb as well as for 1983 climb when we couldn't fInd the register. The continuous telemark run down the east slope to our waiting camp was great once again, It is hard to imagine a better ski descent in the Sierras that at the same time is very mellow and straightforward.

From this point in the trip, we would be covering new territory. On day 3, rather than return to the Muir Trail and the Evolution area, we continued west to Martha Lake, crossed Wild West Pass and skied north along the Le Conte Divide. We had a great descent down Hutton Pass, crossed Hell for Sure Pass (from west to east) and spent our third night just north of the pass along a bench high above the south fork of the San Joaquin. The weather had been threatening all day and snow and hail fell during the evening. I wondered what this would do to the red clister that Armando and I had put on that day, since we had forgotten our solvent to "get rid of that stuff".

On day 4, we continued north along the bench. Several of us fell on a steep icy section, but in general the bench is easy and is the key to making the Evolution Loop. The draw back of this tour is that eventually, one has to drop down to Evolution Creek at 8,500 feet and at this time of year, that involves lots of walking. From Evolution Meadow, we turned north and camped at a lake at 11,200 feet, just below Mathes Col. We had to wade the stream at Evolution Meadow. Isn't there a bridge somewhere around there?

The following morning, we climbed toward what we thought was Mathes Col. Moynier's description said there was an extremely sharp drop on the north side. That was very true! We gave Jeannie a quick ice axe lesson and spent 2 hours carefully descending the only couloir that didn't require a hang glider to get down. We descended to Piute Canyon and thrashed our way through the trees toward Piute Pass with minimal snow cover. In Humphrey's Basin, much time was spent on stream crossings; all the winter snow bridges were gone. Brian and I later concluded that we had crossed the crest too far west coming out at Lower Honeymoon Lake rather than Lobe Lakes. We will probably never know since this is a tour I will not repeat.

We reached Piute Pass in the late afternoon on day 5. Armando and Jeannie decided to camp at the pass while Brian and I continued on. We skied down to Piute Lake at 11,000 feet but then walked the remaining 7 miles to our car.

The total elevation gain for this tour was about 15,000 feet. Although the Le Conte Divide area is interesting, the shorter Goddard loop keeps you high and is preferable. There are many variations, such as skiing Alpine Col, and there are ways of avoiding the Sabrina trailhead.

Topo maps required for the tour are Mt. Goddard, Blackcap Mtn., and Mt. Abbot. All are 15 min and Abbot is required only if you want to know where Mathes Col really is.