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Warning: the 'shortcut' trail off Kearsarge Pass added 6 miles and a creek crossing, do not trust old trip reports
So back in August my buddy and I did the Rae Lakes loop out of Onion Valley and I had printed off a trip report from 2016 that swore there was a use trail cutting off a big chunk of the switchbacks below Kearsarge Pass. I trusted it because the guy sounded like he knew what he was doing and the map I had was from 2011. Big mistake. We followed what looked like a faint path for about a mile until it faded into a talus field, then we spent two hours hopping boulders with full packs before dropping into a gully that dead ended at a creek with no crossing. We had to climb back up 400 feet to rejoin the real trail and by then a storm was rolling in over the ridge. We ended up doing the whole thing in the dark with headlamps and got to camp at 10pm, soaked and beat. The switchbacks we tried to skip would have taken 40 minutes. Lesson is those old reports online never mention when a trail got decommissioned, and the ranger at the permit station even told me later that section has been closed to camping for a while. Has anyone else gotten burned by a trip report that was like 8 years old, and how do you check if a route is still legit before you drive 5 hours to a trailhead?
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