Gore Range - Saddle between Peak J and Peak K

[Hiking_TheRockies]

This summer I'm planning to backpack through the Gore range with a friend - most of the route is figured out except for a stretch attempting to link Bubble Lake to Upper Slate Lake. Some Caltopo/Google Earth/Trip report browsing has helped me develop most of the route to connect the two lakes, except for crossing the Peak J-Peak K-Peak L ridgeline.

From the looks of it pretty much everything on the ridge is cliffs/too steep to safely ascend with a backpacking pack except for (potentially) the saddle connecting Peak J to Peak K. It looks to me like we would need to ascend a bench to the northwest of the saddle and then traverse over towards Peak K to find a safe descent route into the valley containing Upper Slate Lake, but that's based off of topo map data and I'm not even sure if it's possible. Does anyone have any good beta on this area and any thoughts about how this could be possible without climbing gear (if at all?). Photo with the area and potential route attached.

[yaktoleft13]

No explicit beta, but here's a pic from near South America lake looking at the back of the basin. Q's on the left. Slopes look pretty manageable back there? No idea on the north side.

https://www.14ers.com/usercontent/trips ... 925_48.jpg

[gergmorg]

it's possible for sure met a guy last year at bubble that had come from upper slate. not sure of his direct route but it the way he explained it was the same as your map. The beauty of the Gore is that there is still some unknown.

[planet54]

I know of at least 4 People/groups that have done that saddle from South to North. 2 are members of this website but I will leave it up to them to share their info or not. Another was the late photographer John Fielder. So doable but snow conditions would certainly be a factor. The pass from Bubble Lake to South Black Creek is Boomer Pass. I did that one back in the 80's . It wasn't bad but I had youth on my side. Here is an old video that I bookmarked long ago ,and am surprised that it is still available, for Boomer Pass.

[Hiking_TheRockies]

Sounds like it's just a game of finding a good gully to go down towards South America lake. That's the side I was worried about so good to know it's possible and been done before. Thanks all for responses!