The Benson Lake Loop

Looking from Burro Pass down Matterhorn Canyon. Quarry Peak is to the right of center. The trail stays to the right of the canyon.

Burro Pass: Matterhorn Canyon

The Benson Lake Loop, August 2002

I dropped my pack and headed over to see down Matterhorn Canyon, and I was not disappointed. To my left the pass area was a low granite ridge, and after going behind some large granite outcroppings, I mounted a long white granite rib that edged the top of pass ridge. I walked over to a prominence where the view opened before me.

I stood at the top end of a long valley lined with lofty jagged ridges and headed with high grand peaks. The valley below had the characteristic glacier carved "U" shape so often seen it the regions of ancient ice. Below me lay a green expanse of glacier-flattened high meadow that led my eye to picturesque timberline groves of stunted trees. In the far distance was a large meadow area at the foot of the canyon where it made a left turn in a steep walled section of canyon below Doghead and Quarry Peak and the nearby hanging valley on the northern shoulder of Quarry Peak.

Above me the Matterhorn soared, and nowhere in the Sierra is a peak more poorly named. Rather it was a kin of Seven Gables in form and features. Its northern slopes has the multiple "gables" that might have had the more astute mountain-namer calling this peak "Six Gables", or something similar. I looked at the western ridge of the peak dubiously, trying to figure out why it was supposed to be class 2. I knew that distance foreshortened things and slopes are not as steep as they often seem, but it looked like a long rough and rugged climb.

The Class 3 Matterhorn Pass leading to Spiller Canyon.

The nearby Matterhorn Pass to the southeast to Spiller Canyon looked interesting and manageable (Class 3), but still a long steep haul. Looked like fun, if a lot of work.

Whorl Mountain seemed just another peak along a ridge full of peaks. Of more interest was the peak between Whorl and Matterhorn with is long polished granite southwest ridge and summit with probably great views from the summit of the two major flanking peaks.