looking for beta from whittier to carmen lake to 20 mile

Can the route really be done in tennis shoes? No crampons /ice axes needed? Would skis be best?
Did you take the Leornard Gl to Lowell Gl and then down the South Fork Upper Carmen drainage to the lake?
Any snafus to be wary of?
Thanks for any help you can give.
Chris Brehmer

Did it in early sept 2 yrs ago after a drop across Passage Canal at Billings Creek. From there, trail shoes are fine. Probably a lot of snow up there this yr but we only crossed a few small snow fields. At that time the 2 major streams flowing into the lake looked pretty low volume so we stayed up high on the ridge all the way to the lake. Preferred being up above treeline too until descending to the lake as there was likely a lot of bushwacking down low. A couple of short vertical walls to climb on the route but don’t need climbing gear. Long day trip…we were paddling across the lake at sunset and floated out to the the road in the dark. Lucky to have a full moon as I didn’t have a headlight.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like you had a good trip. Probably hasn’t been done too many times that way. So you stayed high on the ridge between North and South Upper Carmen Creeks to avoid brush and had a good time of it. Cool. Keep on adventurin’.