SHR Day 6: Duck Lake, Deer Lakes, Mammoth Crest

Day 6: Duck Lake, Deer Lakes, Mammoth Crest

We were definitely not in the remote high country of the Sierras anymore. The next six miles of the SHR shared the trail with the JMT. In the previous five days, we’d seen a grand total of 16 people. In the first two hours of hiking on the JMT we saw 30.

We turned off the JMT at the Duck Lake trail intersection and climbed 2 miles up to the very lovely Duck Lake. We continued climbing up to Duck Pass, a popular Mammoth area day hike and then veered off the trail to walk cross country over to the small, colorful, almost Caribbean-looking Deer Lakes. We took a long break at Deer Lakes to filter water and completely cool off as the next six miles would climb up and over the completely waterless and largely treeless Mammoth Crest. The climb up the crest was very warm, dry and dusty, but periodic breezes from the west kept things reasonably comfortable. We had great views on all sides though it was a little strange to look down on the civilization of Mammoth Lakes after five days in the remote backcountry. We had line of sight to the cell towers on Mammoth mountain so we were able to check in with friends and family before continuing on.

The trail we’d been on veered east to a trailhead down toward Mammoth Lakes, but we needed to continue north so we followed a faint path through increasingly dusty and squishy pumice. Our final descent was down a steep drainage of ankle deep pumice that was truly awful. The gaitors won MVP piece of gear that day. We camped at McLeod lake that night which, being only two miles from a major trailhead, felt a bit like camping in a city park with the number of people around. At one point a woman walked by video-chatting on her iPhone while walking her dog as Pete filtered water from the lake. Weird.

Day 7: resupply, Superior Lake

SHR Day 5: Big Horn Pass, Shout-of-Relief Pass, Lake Virginia

Day 5: Big Horn Pass, Shout-of-Relief Pass, Lake Virginia

Sure enough - the steep, grassy couloir goes! A mixture of grassy steps and minor scrambling brought us to Big Horn Pass overlooking Rosy Finch Lake. Nothing technical, but we wouldn’t have enjoyed doing the climb in wet conditions. From Big Horn Pass, we looked across a ½ mile-wide basin of big boulders and steep buttresses to another pass on the opposite side. We spent the next hour+ negotiating our way up, down and around the obstacles. Again, nothing technical, just slow and methodical.

We climbed up to the aptly titled Shout-of-Relief Pass, so named because when you look over the other side you let out a shout of relief at how easy the terrain for the descent is. We started the day under overcast skies (a welcome relief from the hot sun of the previous day) so we fired up the weather radio one more time to see if the clouds were going to become something more sinister. We got the all clear for sunny weather through Friday, 9/5. We high-fived each other and started our descent towards Tully Lake.

At this point the SHR veers left to stay off trail for the one mile descent to Tully Hole. We opted to veer right to catch the McGee Pass Trail to Tully Hole as we had a date with our favorite lake from the JMT, Virginia Lake, that afternoon and we wanted to get there as fast as possible. Getting back on a major trail immediately reminded us of one of the few downsides to Sierras trail travel - ubiquitous horse shit. Almost all the trails are pack trails and they get frequent use. Still, a small price to pay for efficient travel to our next destination.

We had a brief stop at Tully Hole to cool off and filter water before starting the final 1000 foot climb up to Virginia Lake. This section of the route coincides with the JMT. Coming from the north, as we had before, you descend a series of long, hot, dry switchbacks. We congratulated ourselves in 2010 for getting to descend and not ascend this section of trail, and yet here we were, four years later climbing those damn switchbacks. Oh well. They actually weren’t so bad after what we’d just traveled across in the previous days.

Virginia Lake was just as pretty as we remembered it. We found an awesome campsite out of the wind and away from the trail and spent the afternoon laundering our clothes and our bodies in the lake. It was extremely relaxing.

Day6: Duck Lake, Deer Lakes, Mammoth Crest

SHR Day 4: Gabot Pass, Mono Creek, Laurel Lake

Day 4: Gabot Pass, Mono Creek, Laurel Lake

We left Toe Lake and climbed easy slabs and meadows towards Gabot Pass, so named as its in the saddle between Mt.Gabb and Mt. Abbot. While the descent was technically easy, we had about a mile of clamboring over huge car sized boulders forming the old terminal moraines of the glaciers below Gabb and Abbot. After about 1400vf of descending, we’d reached the meadows of Upper Mills Creek Lake. We both wondered about the couple we’d met and how long it would take them to carry their dog, Lily, through all those boulders.

Easy travel through meadows past the Mills Creek Lakes brought us to our next puzzle. From the lakes to Second Recess canyon, the ‘track’, when we could find it, wound down 1,000vf through steep scree, sand, and brush with a waterfall on one side and 5th class slabs on the other. Once in the canyon, we passed by more inviting swimming holes, some with waterfalls pouring into pools of perfectly cool water, but again, the swimming needed to wait till later.  We plodded through the forest down the long, low-angle valley to Mono Creek.

Once at Mono Creek, we reloaded our water bottles, soaked our feet and enjoyed some shade before we began to chip away at the 2,000ft climb in the afternoon heat. We reached the lovely Laurel Lake by mid-afternoon and Pete nearly made himself sick chugging many, many liters of water trying to correct a bad case of dehydration.

Once again, we stared up at improbable-looking slopes that were to be our ascent route in the morning. We thought we spied a path through a steep, grassy couloir, but we wouldn’t know for sure if it went until the next day. All the other improbable-seeming climbs worked out so we took it on faith that it would be fine and spent the evening enjoying an amazing sunset. 

Day5: Big Horn Pass, Shout-of-Relief Pass, Lake Virginia

SHR Day 3: Feather Basin, White Bear Pass, Lake Italy

Day 3: Feather Basin, White Bear Pass, Lake Italy

We were up early and heading towards Feather Pass. As was often the case, staring straight on at a climb always makes it look worse than it really is, and as we climbed towards a gully flanked by steep slabs, we were relieved to find the crux was a few hundred feet of very easy scree-covered track with the occasional 2nd class scramble. Once above the steepest section, we had a series of slabs and benches to ascend to Feather Pass. From Feather Pass, we got our first glimpse at Mt.Ritter and Banner way in the distance. Tuolumne Meadows is twenty miles beyond those peaks, so this gave us a good idea of just how far we needed to go over the next week and a half.  At the pass, we flipped on the weather radio, but rather than an alpine forecast, we got a Bay Area surf forecast. So much for knowing if the clouds we saw would produce rain, but at least we knew the seas were calm in the Farallon Islands.

The descent from Feather was time-consuming but easy - more boulder hopping over the moraine of a long since disappeared glacier. On our way towards the Bear Lakes we met a party of four who were returning the way they’d came yesterday. They’d had a longer trip planned but a couple of their partners had pooped out the day before, so they were returning.  

For the next few hours we descended open grasslands and slabs past Bearpaw, Ursa, and Black Bear Lakes then climbed to White Bear Lakes on our way to White Bear Pass. The views of the many surrounding 13,000ft peaks were outstanding.   

Staring down the next 1,000 vf from the pass to Brown Bear Lake didn’t immediately look too tough and we congratulated ourselves on how easy the first 200 vf were...then it just got bad.   Loose scree on steep slabs hemmed in by 4th and 5th class slabs on either side. We followed the route description but it was still another huge time suck. Pete saw a faint track through waist-high brush and we crashed through it standing on vegetation several inches above the actual ground. Once through the brush, we found a faint track through scree slopes and slabs and slowly made our way to the basin below. Two hours to descend 1,000 feet and maybe one mile of distance, and we arrived at Brown Bear Lake. We filtered water, Becky tended to her feet, and Pete went for a swim to try and ice his back and legs.  

The rest of the day was relaxing and easy compared to the morning. We descended to the Lake Italy trail and then hiked the lake’s two-mile length towards our next pass, setting up camp at Toe Lake just below Gabot Pass.

That evening a couple from the Bay Area hiked by and we chatted for a bit. They were doing a week-long loop out of Mosquito Flat covering some of the same ground as us. They had an adorable dog, an energetic weimaraner named Lily, who handled the trail sections easily, but they did have to pick her up and carry her through some off-trail sections.

The rest of the day was spent like the others, reading, laundry, and lots of stretching.  

Day4: Gabot Pass, Mono Creek, Laurel Lake

SHR Day 2: Puppet Pass, Le Salle Lake

Decision time...we were waiting until this morning to see how Pete’s back was and then figure out what to do. He really didn’t want to pull the plug on the trip before it had even started, but the Aleve was barely putting a dent in the pain. Mica graciously offered to take any unnecessary gear with her when they returned to North Lake that afternoon. In the end Mica took the camera tripod and Becky offered to carry the SLR while Pete carried the compact camera.  No night photography on this trip, but it would be nice to still have the big camera around.

We decided to keep going. The SHR runs east of and high above the Muir Trail, but it was relatively easy to access the JMT at many points along the way. If Pete’s back was still bad a couple days from now, we could depart the SHR and hit the Muir Trail and cover the relatively easy trail miles to our resupply point at Red’s Meadow Resort outside of Mammoth within a couple days, and from there we could catch a bus to Tuolumne and retrieve our car.   Hopefully we wouldn’t have to bail though.

We hugged our friends goodbye and set off towards our first pass, Puppet Pass/Carol Col.   Easy travel through the grassy, rocky Humphreys Basin brought us to the pass by mid-morning.  Most of the passes we’d encounter on this trip were easy to access on the south aspect, but considerably rockier and steeper on the north aspect. Steve Roper recommends traveling from south to north, and we appreciated that despite the passes being tough, at least we were down-climbing them rather than spending hours scrambling up the north sides.

While looking for the best route down, we met a friendly Bishop local who was waiting at the pass for a friend to catch up. It was welcome to get his regular shouts of route information as we descended to keep us on the most stable boulders and ledges. It took us about 30 minutes to descend through the worst of it to Puppet Lake below. The descent wasn’t that tough, but we now knew the passes would be a time-suck as we expected. Lots of scrambling over car-size rocks, stepping on scree-covered benches, avoiding steep drop-offs - generally unpleasant stuff. Once in the Puppet Lake basin, we took a bearing on a waterfall across French Canyon to the north and began our descent through meadows and open forest to the canyon below.

The swimming holes in French Canyon were inviting and the heat of the day was on us, but we needed to cover some ground towards our next pass. We were briefly on the French Canyon trail for all of a half-mile before we headed out cross-country again up towards Merriam Lake. Supposedly there is a faint trail, but the best we could find was an occasional boot-print in dirt that confirmed someone had gone this way before.  

By early afternoon we’d climbed back to treeline and had views of Merriam Lake to the west.   We didn’t want to tackle another pass that day, so we climbed towards La Salle Lake just below Feather Pass. We only met one other party that day, a group of three traveling southbound. We chatted briefly, but afterwards realized that we’d completely forgotten to ask for any beta on how the next couple passes were.  

The afternoon was spent reading, washing socks, and as would become the regular routine, Pete would find a big flat rock slab and do a ton of back and leg stretches trying to keep the back ache manageable.

Day3: Feather Basin, White Bear Pass, Lake Italy

SHR Day 1: North Lake to Desolation Basin

Right off the bat, this trip was going to be a bit of a challenge for Pete. For years he’s dealt with a damaged disc in his lumbar region and in the weeks prior to the trip it had been particularly bad. It’s never hurt on a backcountry trip before, but when he hefted his pack that morning, within a half mile, his back began to spasm. Thankfully, the scenery as we climbed up towards Piute Pass was an amazing distraction from the occasional cattle-prod of electricity that shot through his back.

We passed under the massive south face of Mt.Emerson. We’d met some folks departing the trailhead earlier that morning with a rope and a rack heading for that peak - must be lots of good alpine climbing around there. The views just got better and better and we all huffed and puffed towards Desolation Basin, where we’d leave the trail and head north on the High Route.

We had a snack at Piute Pass and soaked in the views out into Desolation Basin and south to Glacier Divide. We hiked a couple more miles to Lower Desolation Lake where we set up camp for the night. Another relaxing afternoon passed with wading in the lake, taking lots of pictures, and seeing the occasional jackrabbit. Andy taught us a new card game, which appropriately was called ‘Piute’. Pete went to bed early but Andy, Mica, and Becky stayed up late and enjoyed the stargazing from this high treeless basin.

link to photo album

Day 2: Puppet Pass, Le Salle Lake

Trying out the Sierra High Route - Ten days travelling from North Lake to Tuolumne

words by Becky and Pete

We hiked the John Muir Trail from Yosemite to Mt.Whitney in the late summer of 2010.  The trip was nothing short of amazing-  the scenery, the physical challenge, the whole trip was filled with a sense of wonder and is easily one of the top backcountry trips we’ve done.  Since that time, we’ve both wanted to return to the Sierras for another long hike, but knew there was much more to see than just repeating the Muir Trail.

We don’t remember when exactly, but sometime after hiking the JMT, we read about the Sierra High Route (SHR). The SHR is an alternative route travelling the spine of the Sierras developed by climber and hiker Steve Roper. Steve produced a guidebook describing the 200 mile route that is only about half on-trail and shares just a few miles with the JMT. It also spends much more time in the alpine, rather than climbing to a pass only to descend to another valley. It sounded like a rather challenging, and definitely scenic long distance trip.

We set our sights on late summer 2014, and we decided that in the span of two weeks, we could probably cover about half of the SHR’s full distance. Some of the off-trail sections are miles of scree, talus, and boulder hopping with some occasional scrambling and there was no way we could average 17 miles a day like we had on the JMT. One of the most hazardous off-trail sections, Snow Tongue Pass, was between the Evolution Valley and Desolation Basin, so if we started north of there, we should have a fairly reasonable 100 miles to cover in two weeks from Bishop to Tuolumne Meadows. An added bonus was that because the area we’d be starting in was Wilderness Area, and not National Park, our friends Andy & Mica could join us with their dog Tundra (dog’s aren’t allowed on trails in National Parks).

Our gear was largely the same as what we’d used on the JMT. A few add-ons this time included dust gaitors for our low-top shoes to keep pebbles and scree out, thin fleece pullovers to supplement our down jackets, and Pete included a lightweight Montbell sleeping bag cover to add some warmth to his 1-lb Vireo sleeping bag. For the JMT, we carried our EPIRB emergency beacon, but for this trip we also carried a GPS, and a small NOAA weather radio.

Pre-trip

Unlike the JMT, the logistics for the SHR were pretty easy, thanks to our friends who were all vacationing on the east side of the Sierras at the same time. Andy and Mica would join us at the North Lake trailhead and hike in with us, then we’d part company on day 2, and they’d return to the cars. On the way home, they’d drive their van, and our car over Tioga Pass and leave our car at the Tuolumne Meadows trailhead for us….no need for complicated bus shuttles or rental cars this time! Thanks Andy and Mica!!

We started our trip with a stop in Salem to attend a memorial service for Pete’s beloved grandfather Harry. He was an amazing, inspiring man who helped shape Pete’s love of the outdoors. It was a nice opportunity to visit with family and remember all the great things Harry contributed to the lives of every person he met.

We left Salem on Saturday and drove to Susanville. We stopped there because it was roughly half way to Mammoth and because they have a brewery, Lassen Ale Works. This interest in local breweries would drive many of our future decisions about where to stop along the way. We had a smoky porter and a full-bodied, sweet brown ale - both very tasty!

The next day we continued the somewhat boring drive through eastern northern California and Nevada until we got to the turnoff for Bodie, an abandoned mining town turned state park. Much of the 19th century town has been preserved exactly as it was left back in its heyday, complete with plates set on tables collecting years of dust. After visiting the cemetery and getting depressed by the number of children buried there we decided to head back up the very rutted road to highway 395 and continue our trek to Mammoth.

We met up with Marcus, Anastasia, Andy and Mica in Mammoth Lakes where we learned that Andy and Mica’s VW Westfalia van, Sully, had begun leaking gas. They needed to get it looked at in the morning down in Bishop. Originally they were going to join us for the first five days of the trip, but we realized that this would probably change that.

We met them down in Bishop where their van had been fixed (yay!), but we were short on time to set up the needed car shuttle for the five day trip and they were a little gunshy to leave it at the trailhead for five days so after considering several different options, they decided to hike in with us for the first night and then hike out the next day. They had to drive back to Mammoth to collect some gear they’d left with Marcus and Anastasia, but eventually we all picked up our permits, made the mandatory stop at Schatt’s Bakery for breakfast pastries for the following morning and made our way to the North Lake Campground high above the hot, arid slopes of the eastern Sierra.

link to photo album

Day 1: Desolation Basin

Day 2: Puppet Pass, Le Salle Lake

Day 3: Feather Basin, White Bear Pass, Lake Italy

Day 4: Gabot Pass, Mono Creek, Laurel Lake

Day 5: Big Horn Pass, Shout-of-Relief Pass, Lake Virginia

Day 6: Duck Lake, Deer Lakes, Mammoth Crest

Day 7: resupply, Superior Lake

Day 8: Minarets, Ritter and Banner

Day 9: Donahue Pass

Day 10: Lyell Canyon

Post-Trip, drive home