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Sierra High Route - North Lake to McGee Creek Trailhead

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:44 pm
by JWreno
After reading the recent SHR post for suggested segments, I spent the day using the TOPO! software and some resources online to figure out a trip. The trip includes following the Sierra High Route from Humphrey Basin to Tully Lake. Using the TOPO! software I show about 30 miles of mostly off trail SHR. This distance doesn't include the extra miles involved with route finding. It's about 6.5 miles from the trail head at North Lake to join the SHR. It's about another 12 miles from the trail near Tully Lake to over McGee pass and done to McGee creek campground trailhead. I decided to exit via McGee pass because I have down the JMT parts of the trail from Tully Hole to Ducks pass 4 previous times. The shorter trip will get us into high country with extra time to explore.

I read through the Steve Roper book for the route description for this segment. It looks doable in a 9 day vacation. I figure a half day from Reno to McGee Creek campground for vehicle drop off, lunch in Bishop and starting at North Lake. It will be a full day by the time we get over Piute pass to Humphrey Basin. This would give us 5-6 days to explore this segment of the SHR and 2 more trail days to get to the trailhead, retrieve other car and get back home.

My wife, son and I have been doing Sierra hikes since 1993 and have done 3 full JMT trips in the last 6 summers. Only previous off trail portion of the SHR was from Thousand Isles to Blue Lake pass. It was a great trip and going off trail was slow because of the route finding. We haven't hikes with a stove since 2005 but make cook dinners this time because the daily miles and total miles are far less then what we have done on the JMT. I hope to fit in a few non-technical peaks while on the route.

For those how have hiked this part of the SHR, looking for any special advice or warnings about difficulties not mentioned in the Roper SHR book.