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