Hike Mount Gilbert, Mount Mazama, Echo Lake Loop Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, NV

Jul 28, 2022 — Echo Lake is a coveted lake in the Ruby Mountains, requiring a bit of effort to reach. Most hikers likely come at the lake via the Right Fork Lamoille Creek Trail, but we wanted to head up to Mount Gilbert first and then descend using the trail, creating a loop. According to maps, the trail leads right to Echo Lake, and the time we didn't know the trail actually doesn't exist past Goat Lake, found at around 9,300'. This was my second time to visit Echo Lake. About 5 years ago we made so many mistakes on that hike that I wanted to return to form a better route, plus tack on a couple of additional peaks, notably Mount Mazama, the smaller neighbor of Mount Gilbert. Both are Nevada 11,000-foot peaks. If your goal is only to reach Echo Lake, I recommend doing our hike in the opposite diretion by going up to Goat Lake and then continue around off-trail to the saddle to Echo Lake's south side. It would be a lot less dangerous and not include any peaks.

Starting from the trailhead just outside Camp Lamoille, we located the start of the Right Fork Lamoille Creek Trail, following it south on its western bank. There's a key junction that you might miss, where the trail crosses the creek and continues ascending along the eastern bank. There's a section early on where the trail climbs very steeply, then descends a bit as it enters the Ruby Mountains Wilderness, but past this it ascends at a leisurely pace. We had no difficulty sticking to the trail, but the summer underbrush hid a few rocks and caused Chris to go for a hilarious tumble. At around 8200' the trail emerged from the lush canyon and into the wildflower-filled valley above. Mount Gilbert had been visible for most of the hike so far, but now it was just ahead of us.

We left the trail once it started to continue south and away from the peak, choosing to ascend via the basin-like feature on Gilbert Peak's northeast side. Some light bushwhacking and a stream crossing got us to the start of the steep slope, where all sorts of obstacles awaited. For the most part the slope is steep enough that any rock outcroppings should be avoided, little grassy gullies and chutes between the cliffs serving as Class 2/2+ methods for gaining higher ground. It's likely you'll pull at least one Class 3 move to overcome a small cliff band here or there, but with careful route-finding you can avoid excessive danger. We enjoyed our ascent route choices, planning a few hundred feet ahead and picking the route we thought felt most reasonable, though there are many potential options. Eventually we made it out of the steep and grassy terrain and onto a Class 2 boulder field closer to the base of Mount Gilbert. Above we could see a hint of the bench/ledge that we were trying to get to at around 10,600', but asending the slope came first. On my last visit this was all snow-covered and was certainly much easier and avoided any looseness, but none of the moves exceeded Class 2+.

Now on the grassy bench, which is far more reasonable than it looks from below, we traversed west for a hundred feet or so until reaching a minor ridge on the peak's northeast side. Previously we ascended this ridge directly and it was fun Class 2/3 that took some concentration due to the occasional loose rock. This time, I chose to wrap a little past this ridge (while Chris took the ridge) and ascended via a wide gully just to the right of the ridge, which was all Class 2 except for a Class 3 move higher up. It was less exposed, but I don't think you could go too wrong with route-finding past the bench in order to reach the summit ridge. Once on the summit ridge, we headed southwest on easy Class 2/3 to gain the summit of Mount Gilbert. Much more familiar with the Rubies than last time, it was fun to pick out the peaks and lakes that I previously had no understanding of, boring Chris with my reminscencing as he took in the wonderful views. The southern cliff of Mount Gilbert is extremely cool, as are the rocky fins that stretch south away from the peak.

The next step was to descend from Mount Gilbert. Bob Burd reported an option leading off the northwest side of the peak that works nicely. It mostly ended up being Class 2 with a couple of Class 3 moves. Just at the bottom is a cliff steep enough that we didn't want to attempt dropping down (maybe Class 4?). Instead, a short detour on the right led up for about 20 feet and over a rock rib, then dropped down to the floor below. We then turned south and headed along the base of Mount Gilbert's west face. The route was Class 2 along the slope, but slowly narrowed and steepened. We noted a long fin ahead along the ridge crest that needed to be avoided, requiring us to drop about 50 feet down the slope on the right in order to continue traversing. It's all quite neat. We reached a tree along the now quite narrow ledge. It's likely possible to just continue wrapping along the ledge and use the tree for support. However, it was hanging over a cliff, so we used a Class 3+ alternative just to the left, but this was pretty exposed too. Ahead was a gully that, on my previous go at Mount Gilbert, was snow-filled. Last time we headed into the gully and used the crevasse formed by the melted snow to ascend. Now it was loose and crummy-looking, so we decided to try keeping to the steep terrain on the gully's left. I highly recommend not doing this, or at least being sure the route you choose is better than our garbage. The gully would have been a much better option. We encountered some dangerously steep hardpan and otherwise loose rock and I wasn't having fun on it.

Once above the gully and now on the ridgeline, we looked back and saw the formidable south face of Mount Gilbert, a pretty amazing sight. We kept to the left of a steep rocky hump (Class 2) and found ourselves at a notch overlooking Echo Lake, yet another gorgeous sight. To reach Mount Mazama, we dropped a hundred feet or so on a Class 2 talus field and wrapped around a cliff at Mazama's base. From here we ascended more Class 2/2+ talus to reach the southern slope of Mount Mazama. Class 2 got us to the summit from here on a relatively grassy slope.

To get to our next peak, No Echo Knob, we headed back down from Mount Mazama and stumbled along Class 2 talus as we traversed the wide boulder field on the east side of Echo Lake. We had to think a bit ahead to avoid steeper sections and little rock outcroppings, but it was pretty straightforward overall. We ascended Class 2/3 to reach the north ridge of No Echo Knob, then pleasant tundra got us to the summit.  From the summit we peered to the west at the saddle just south of Echo Lake. Maps led us to believe that the Right Fork Lamoille Canyon Trail's upper reaches leads down to Echo Lake from here. We saw only a hint of the trail, so it was clear that it was basically no longer in existence. Instead of descending to the nonexistent trail, we thought it best to just make a descending traverse from No Echo Knob's summit, wrap around its southern ridge, and then hopefully bop onto the trail, if it even existed at all further along the way. The ridgeline proper seemed to have enough rocks to be annoying, so we decided to side-hill and it wasn't bad. The views were excellent to the south as we continued our wrapping descent. Confident we couldn't see even a hint of the trail below, we just kind of gave up looking for it and continued to the saddle on No Echo Knob's east side on pleasant terrain. I was a little disappointed the trail was no longer since it would have really made the entire hike from Echo Lake quite nice.

I definitely thought we'd at least be able to pick up the trail once at the saddle, but all that remains even here are some cairns that someone has placed. We did our best to follow the originally laid trail placement, but there were sections that were washed out with boulders and it made more sense just to stick to the tundra. The next goal was to reach Goat Lake, the small lake below. The trail (or what's marked as the trail on a map) does a horrible job leading there. Instead of doing our weird wrapping thing to reach Goat Lake's western side as it appears on my map, I recommend just descending directly to the lake and finding your own route. We had to cross a marsh and bushwhack a bit, which was far from ideal.

I should also note that I added a dark blue line to my attached map of an exposed Class 4 descent option from Echo Lake. I don't recommend doing it, but I included it as a reference since it's what Shawn and I had used on our last visit to the area as a last resort since it was getting dark.

Anyway, once at Goat Lake we were thrilled to find a very obvious trail on its north side. I guess most hikers stop at the lake and turn around, so it made sense a trail wouldn't be maintained all the way to Echo Lake. We even passed a few people on the way back. The rest of the hike was gorgeous and wildflowers filled our view. We enjoyed the nice trail after being on weird terrain all day and quicky made our way back to the trailhead. I think it was really fun to relive this route as a more experienced hiker years later.