High Sierra

High Sierra and Mt. Whitney

Woof Woof! Moving along now into the High Sierra from about 8500ft to top of Mt. Whitney @ 14,500+.

September is a good time to head into the Sierra as students are back to school and crowds thin out from the trails. I did still meet a fair amount of hikers on popular trails like the John Muir Trail and some of the trails that start west of Bishop – good to see a wide range of ages and people from all over the world in the mountains . Instead of doing a lot of cross-country hiking as I have done in the past, I split my time hiking trails and combined that with only a few cross-country jaunts – easier on the back and joints. In total I spent 12 days in the backcountry ending with a quick 30 hour summit of Mt. Whitney. Spending time at altitude before doing Mt. Whitney made that hike to the summit fairly easy actually. The high lakes in the Sierra are great destinations for camping as well as good places to strive for while tramping up the trail. I like having lakes to use as motivators, to help with navigation, and because they are good spots to take a break. The massive granite mountains and polished granite terrain in the Sierra is always awe-inspiring. Hiking across polished granite is a great way to get in touch with the Sierra!

One neat aspect of this trip was that I was able to try out my home-made tee-pee like tent that I sewed up last year. This tent uses the trekking poles I use on the trail as the main support by having one pole insert into the top grip of the other. The tent worked fine even on a few windy nights at 11,000ft.

One thing I always miss in the Sierra is wildlife. Yes, there are a few marmots here and there, squirrels, chipmunks, potential bears (I have never seen a bear in the high Sierra after about 100 days of backpacking), and a few bird species – but, compared to time spent in Alaska where wildlife sightings are fairly common – I feel like the Sierra is a little barren of wildlife. Never-the-less, I always welcome sightings of any wildlife and was happy to run into a few marmots, grey jays, and tons of Juncos. All-in-all, good backpacking and great weather for my three mini-trips. Sunsets and sunrises were quite colorful and night skies often full of stars. Some passes during cross-country travel proved tough hiking at altitude, but I feel like the push to get up these passes helped when I went up the chute to Mt. Whitney. The mountaineers route I took up Mt. Whitney is a rough trail that crosses many talus and boulder fields and ends with a somewhat steep ascent of a series of chutes that go up its eastern buttress area. Not too difficult, but watching one’s step is fairly critical while going up and while heading down. Great views and good feeling to get to highest point of lower 48 states…..enjoy the photos…..more again soon….