Howdy All,
I did the High Sierra trail in September with my friend Sally. I've wanted to do this trail for a long time and had about three weeks to recover after my John Muir trail trip.
Day 0
My brother in law John came up with us to Sequoia National Park to drive my car home. When we reached the visitor’s center, we discovered there was a one hour delay due to road work. Eek!!! The ranger assured us we would reach Lodgepole before closing time. Sally drove us up the winding switchbacks where we stopped and waited in a long line of cars, battling face flies. Finally started back up – holy cow – they were doing amazing road work. We reached Lodgepole, got our permit, ate ice-cream sandwiches and then John dropped us off at Crescent Meadow, whereupon it immediately started to rain. Due to the prominent “no camping” signs, we went up and off trail a bit and found a secluded spot.
Day 1
We slept well but woke up with wet tents and gear. Took several hours to break camp and dry out. Hoped to find someone to take a trailhead picture but weren’t successful. We started climbing gradually out of Crescent meadow in the shade of the majestic Sequoia trees. The coverage was so good that I didn’t have to don sunscreen until lunch. Passed a group from San Diego that was hiking to Bearpaw meadow High Sierra Camp. About 6.5 miles in, we saw the perfect lunch spot where a stream cascaded down over rocks. The San Diego group caught up and kindly took our picture. We could feel the humidity and see clouds start to develop. We dropped down into Buck Canyon (reminded me of Mill creek), crossed the stream via a bridge, then started climbing again. A mule train caught us, so we flattened ourselves against the side of the hill. Soon we were back in a dense forest and it started to sprinkle. We reached the junction to Bearpaw Meadow and dropped steeply down to our campsite. It started raining harder. Oh well – no point in trying to wait out the weather. We pitched our tents and ate dinner in the rain. Once the rain stopped, we continued to get dripped on by the trees. We were in our bags by nightfall. Several hours later, I heard a tremendous racket and thought a bear was trying to open our bear box. I had to desire to confront a bear in the dark and went back to sleep.
Day 2
We woke up wet again. Dried out as best we could. A deer visited our campsite. Before we left camp, several very unhappy looking backpackers came through and did not respond to our morning greeting. I suspected they got in late and had to set up camp when they were wet and tired – thus the banging bear box. We struggled back up to the trail (this was a real calf burner) and headed to Bearpaw Meadow. Our San Diego friends were sitting on the porch of the main building drinking coffee and wished us well. We dropped into another canyon, crossed a bridge over Lone Pine creek, then started climbing to Hamilton Lake. The trail itself was quite pretty with changing views, colorful rocks and splashes of wildflowers. As we approached the small lake before Hamilton lake, we saw several dramatic rock formations up high to our left – I named one teepee rock. The map calls this area Valhalla. Hamilton Lake was beautiful but our itinerary didn’t permit time for a swim – next time. We started heading up again and were treated with absolutely breathtaking escarpments. This was by far my favorite part of the trail. We found a nice stream cascading over rocks for our lunch spot. One look at the ominous clouds covering Kaweah gap foretold more weather. Then we reached Precipice Lake and just stopped – we were completely overwhelmed and enchanted by its exquisite beauty. This is also where we lost the trail. We wound up scrambling in a moraine field in a white out for about an hour. I felt like crying. Between Sally’s GPS and the map, we finally got back on the trail. The enveloping mist made me feel like I was hiking through gauze. Right about the time we reached the Kaweah gap, it started to hail (of course). We donned our rain jackets and started to descend. It didn’t take long to drop below the gauzy mist. We found ourselves in a pigmy pine tree forest looking down into the Big Arroyo. As we got closer to our intended campsite, we had to cross a stream. Arrgh! Sally crossed without incident (she moves like a gazelle) and I fell in. At least we were back in the trees. We reached the junction of the High Sierra trail and the trail to Little Five Lakes and found a great campsite by a bear box. As we set up camp, we noticed a group of guys had succeeded in starting a campfire. It started to rain again as we began cooking dinner. Right after I boiled water for Sally’s dinner, my JetBoil died. Oh carp. Then we tried Sally’s JetBoil. It sputtered and died. Bless Sally – she tried to share her dinner with me. I was in stubborn mode and refused as I was intent upon making one of the damn stoves work. Finally, my JetBoil came back to life and I had dinner. As night fell, the guys with the campfire invited us over to share. They were all from Texas and have yearly backpacking trips together. These were true gentlemen – they heard us talking about our stove dilemma (probably heard me swearing) and were going to offer their help. They became our Texas mountain brothers. Once we were in our tents, the rain started again.
Day 3
When we woke, our rain flies were covered with ice, as were the handkerchiefs and socks we left on trees to dry. We placed tent flies, tents, sleeping bags and everything else that needed drying out on large rocks that still carried glacier scraping marks. Our Texas brothers were doing the exact same thing before they left for Little Five Lakes. It took three hours for our gear to dry enough to pack up and head out. We warmed up nicely on the climb up to Chagoopa plateau and wondered of the clouds were going to cause us pain again later in the day. After the moraine madness of day 2, we took extra care looking for trail junctions to avoid extra mileage. The plateau and trail were covered with hail and water from the storm. We renamed this section the goopy plateau. We were treated to nice vistas at the edge of the plateau. We started to descend gradually, looking for a good lunch spot and the trail junction. Suddenly we came upon a lake. Wait a minute – there wasn’t supposed to be lake at this point on the High Sierra trail. Sally walked up to the bear box and read “Welcome to Moraine Lake.” Despite keeping a sharp eye out, we had somehow missed the junction. Arrgh! Too irritated to take pictures of the lake, we continued on, looking for the second junction where our trail rejoined the High Sierra trail. We walked and walked, gradually descending and looking for the mythical Sky Parlor meadow where we supposed to get water before the dry descent to the Kern River. At this point, I was getting hungry and needed water. We stopped where the trail was close to a stream (turns out this was the Chagoopa stream) and had lunch. Then we began a steep downhill to what we hoped was the Kern river (we didn’t see the junction where we had apparently rejoined the HST). Seasonal streams crossed the trail, so water was not an issue. We reached the junction for Funyan meadow and the HST. Our initial plan was to camp in Funyan meadow but this would have required removing our boots for a large stream crossing. We opted to head up the HST trail and found a lovely sandy spot with good access to the Kern river. To the left of the trail was the steep wall of the Kern canyon and the pretty Chagoopa falls. Sally took great pictures of the moon over the falls.
Day 4
It was nice to finally have a dry night. We packed up and headed to the Kern hot springs. Crossed the bridge over the Kern river, passed by a bear box and looked for the hot springs. Realized we must have passed them, so we doubled back and got directions from a hiker camped near the springs. Had a leisurely time enjoying the bathtub at the springs, then donned clothing and headed out. We immediately encountered a very large stream that required us to remove our boots to cross – this happened numerous times and really ate up time. This was my first trip with Crocs for camp shoes – I am now a complete convert. We continued to head north, climbing gradually uphill on the east side of the Kern river. Fortunately, we had shade for most of this as it was warm. We crossed a very large stream at Junction meadow, then started a long, dry sunny climb up through manzanita. Reached another junction and started heading east – finally! From the map, it looked like we had easy access to Wallace creek on our right side. Nope – it was well below us. We were out of water and I started slowing down significantly. Sally saw a good place to camp next to Wallace creek that would not require too much scrambling down over rocks and brush. However, I was stubborn and fixated on reaching the damn saddle ahead of us, though it never seemed to get any closer. Finally heard the sound of a waterfall. Lo and behold – Wright creek crossed the trail, just at the right time. Unfortunately, the trail next to the stream was littered with mule poop. I scrambled up to a large rock next to the waterfall and cooled off in the spray. We were able to get water above the mule excrement, then repeated our boot removal process one last time. Having been cooled down by water inside and out, I was now on a mission to reach the saddle where surely we would find the junction of the HST and JMT. Once at the saddle, the ground flattened out and we started searching for a campsite. We were losing daylight quickly and I was starting to get chilled. Reached the HST/JMT junction and saw a bear box. Yippee! Pitched quickly, ate and hopped into bed. I left off my rain fly to avoid condensation – not a good move. This was our coldest night. We both kept trying to find the best position in our sleeping bags so as to not compress the down too much.
Day 5
After a night of tossing and turning to stay warm, we arose to frost covered gear. After eating breakfast, we alternated between packing up and warming up our hands in our armpits. We didn’t get much morning sunlight due to the location of the camp. Finally got packed up and headed out on the JMT to Crabtree – the HST ended at the JMT junction. I was reminded of how the JMT loves to gain elevation only to lose it again. Made good time to Crabtree, had a snack, got some water and picked up our wagbags. We climbed past Timberline to Guitar lake and up to the base of the Hitchcock bench. We had lunch where my Aussie friends had camped on the last night of our JMT trip. We were at the point of no return with respect to water. Either we camped there or carried water up to Whitney. Sally kindly offered to stop. However, she had ignited my desire to spend a night on top of Mt. Whitney and this motivated me to get my butt up the hill. The extra 8 lbs each from four liters of water made for small, purposeful steps but we slow-twitched our way up to the junction on the ridge. Once there, we were golden. Enjoyed chatting with day hikers who were on their way down and taking pictures. At one narrow point on the trail, a day hiker ordered to me to stop so he could get off the “ice,” which was actually soft snow. That was the only unpleasant encounter I had the whole trip. His friends looked embarrassed for him as they passed by us. Before long, we could see the final climb ahead of us. Compared to my JMT trip, the snow patch was quite manageable. We reached the summit hut and found it occupied by two day hikers. The guy got our picture sitting by the sign. We had just enough time to don clothing, throw our stuff in the hut, and watch the sunset. Sally was able to call her family with our estimated arrival time at the Portal. I got a text out but the speaker on my phone was dead. The shadow cast by Whitney over the Owen’s valley was exquisite. We didn’t spend too long outside as the temperature dropped dramatically. We enjoyed dinner (I ate in my bag) and finally settled down for the evening. That was our most comfortable night.
Day 6
The sound of voices in the dawn roused us and we headed outside to view the sunrise. A group of day hikers had started very early to catch this event. It was bitterly cold. We moved around to stay warm and look for the best alpineglow pictures. I thought the shadow of Whitney over the Kaweahs with the morning alpineglow was even prettier than the sunset. We made room in the hut for the day hikers so they could warm up before heading down, then ate breakfast and started packing up. Two men named Jim we’d met at the Hitchcock bench also came in – they camped near the trail junction. Finally had to say goodbye to Whitney and start down. It was a very clear day – great for pictures. We ran into Eva and Kim coming up – they belong to a southern CA hiking club and I’ve met them several times while hiking on San Jacinto. Climbing up to Trailcrest actually felt good, as we knew we’d be descending for the remainder of the day. Made our way carefully down the switchbacks to the outskirts of Trail Camp and ate lunch. Then we started the mind-numbing descent down to Outpost Camp. I did not realize that this was only Sally’s second time on Mt. Whitney. Fortunately, she’d forgotten the length of the bone jarring descent. Once we passed Lone Pine lake, we started singing Beatles songs to pass the time until arriving at the Portal at 4 PM. I’d just gone inside to get a beer and say hi to Doug when I heard my name being called. Lo and behold – it was King Arthur (the hypoxic zombie), Jeff the Yeti Prince and Richard P. What a sight for sore eyes and what unbelievable timing! I had my first Portal burger and tried to eat it while running away from wasps. Larry and Celeste picked us up and we headed down to stay at the Whitney hostel. I took a long bath and was nearly asleep when Sally, Larry and Celeste returned from watching the sunset. The following morning, we had the customary celebratory breakfast at the Alabama Hills café before heading home. Thanks to Sally, her family, and my family for making this possible – what a great way to end my summer in the Sierras.
My pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000936485451&sk=wall#!/media/set/?set=a.253961207978427.55345.100000936485451
Sally's pictures: [url=ttps://picasaweb.google.com/100947735931229008274/HighSierraTrail?authuser=0&feat=directlink#][url=ttps://picasaweb.google.com/100947735931229008274/HighSierraTrail?authuser=0&feat=directlink#][url=ttps://picasaweb.google.com/100947735931229008274/HighSierraTrail?authuser=0&feat=directlink#]ttps://picasaweb.google.com/100947735931229008274/HighSierraTrail?authuser=0&feat=directlink#[/url][/url][/url]
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
Last edited by Ellen Coleman; 10/04/11 07:59 PM.
