Orland Bartholomew was a beast of the ages!
I recently found out that a winter trip I did decades ago was inspired by Orland's Sierra Crest winter traverse. I was in a group doing Dave Beck's
Sierra High Route ski trek. We actually crossed paths with Dave at the Pear Lake Ski Hut, near the end our trip. One of my companions wanted to do a Sierra Crest traverse. Dave suggested we contact Doug Robinson, P-Nut McCoy, Allan Bard or Tom Carter, as they all completed Sierra Crest traverses using modern telemark gear. Our route approximately emulated the Robinson/McCoy trek. Only recently did I learn, however, that Orland's trip was the original inspiration for these later day ski trekkers. Armed with this information I sought out and purchased Rose's book. Our trip was tough despite availing to modern, light gear. I have no idea how Orland prevailed, regardless of how long he took to complete his journey.
Our trip followed much of Orland's journey, with some exceptions. For example:
- Our start was at the gate in Owens Valley, blocking winter access to the Horseshoe Meadow Road. We walked/skied the road into Horseshoe Meadow, then followed Orland over Cottonwood Pass.
- We availed to different passes at various points, en route, resulting in minnor deviations of the route.
- Like Orland, we summited Langley; however, it was a wasted effort as there was near zero visibility at the top. Weather precluded any notion of summiting Whitney. We had intended to also summit other peaks but decided the plan was too ambitious.
- A significant deviation was we stayed high along the Palisades, taking the high basins, via Pot Luck Pass to Dusy Basin, then joining the JMT just below Helen Lake.
- From Silver Pass, we chose to travel along the high bench, above the west side of Cascade Valley, then closely contoured along the Ritter Range above the San Joaquin River to Garnet Lake.
- Another parting from Orland's route was we cut west at the end of the trip, sooner than Orland did, heading west from Garnet Lake over Banner Pass, eventually entering Yosemite Valley at Happy Isles.
- We did not exit the High Sierra, once under way. This, and bypassing Whitney, taking the more direct route along the Palisade/Dusy Basin section, and shorter route at the end into Yosemite Valley cut our trip to ~220 miles.
SIx were on our team. Four of us used modern telemark skis; two wore plastic boots, two wore stiff, double leather boots. The other two people used Randonee alpine set ups. Add in helmets, crampons, axes, ropes, pickets, screws and some other technical gear - the packs were not very light. My 70L pack was about 3/4 full.
Our Sierra Crest traverse was during the winter 1983-84. We left December 27, arrived at Curry Camp sometime the last week of January. The old fossils out there may recall that 1983-84 was the El Nino season that wrecked all of the piers along the Cali coast, south of Santa Cruz. It was equally brutal in the High Sierra! If I had known then what I now know, I would never have signed up for this early season trip. Cold, early winters present very dangerous, unstable snow conditions in the backcountry, and the year we did this trip was plenty cold. Only the first day and last two days did the temperature rise above 15˚F. It was a very memorable, albeit not enjoyable trip. We endured almost nonstop bad weather, crossed many avalanche debris fields and were scared shitless by the frequent roaring sound of avalanche activity, out there, somewhere in the blowing snow and cloud cover. In Bartholomew's case the avalanches were mostly caused by warm weather melting the snow; in our case it was cold weather preventing the snowpack from stabilizing after being deposited. The snow was either too deep, too icy, or sculpted by the wind into un-skiable sastrugi. And of course there were the expected barren, wind scoured passes and high approaches. Did I mention the monster, sometimes double sided, cornices? Thus ours was a brutal slog. It is amazing I did not hang up my skis after that trip. Henceforth my subsequent snow trips in the High Sierra were conducted later, in the spring season, when the snowpack is more stable, the corn snow heavenly, and the weather generally sunny and warm in the daytime.
Someone mentioned Bartholomew had not traveled south of Muir Pass, prior to this trip. But the book alludes he was familiar with the Palisades Basin area, including the presumably easier passage that Cartridge Pass afforded, over his choice to cross Mather Pass. IDNK.
I recall someone wondered on a prior post why bears did not get at Orland's food caches. The book notes he hoisted his caches into trees. He probably also wired the lids to the cans - that is what we did. In our case we placed six caches, most were above tree line, by suspending the cans over the edge of precipices, beyond the reach of larger critters. One of our group did not feel like hauling a metal trash can to deposit his cache, so he used a plastic can. The birds and varmints managed to chew through the can, and trash our food. We were not amused! Not only does this type of trip require a large time commitment to do the journey; it also requires two trips per cache - one to position it before the trip, and one following the trip to retrieve the metal cache storage cans and garbage. BTW: Current regulations do not permit food caching - just saying...
Ed