SHR (Ropers)

[Wandering Daisy]

Since we have a JMT post, what about the SHR? How many here have competed it?

I did it in 2010, complete route plus a few extra side-trips. Definitely NOT a fast trip- pretty leisurely.
Flip-flopped directions due to logistics so that my husband could join me on one leg
1. Twin Lakes to Reds Meadow 13 days (side trip to Hutchins Lake) extra day to exit via Anona Lake and Fern Lake
2. North Lake (intersect HR at Tomahawk Lake) to Reds Meadow Days 14-24 (slow because we did a LOT of fishing)
3. one day drive to Roads End Day 25
4. Roads end to North Lake Days 26-34

The only part I did not do was 2 miles from Muriel Lake to Tomahawk Lake. But I had done that section previously on another trip.

[CAMERONM]

I did the SHR this summer 2017 in four installments, starting in early July, mostly SOBO with one flip. I took 19 days, and then another 15 hours to go back across from Roads End to Onion Valley, thus avoiding the onerous drive-around. It was very much a snow trip with warm weather in the beginning, with crampons, and then a very wet and occasionally buggy trip, with Kahtoolas, and then finally a trip with no traction devices that felt similar to June conditions. It was particularly good to do the northern portion with all the snow, for I think it is less interesting than the other sections. Tuolumne was completely non-functional in July! I do not go particularly fast, enjoy long lunches and naps, and try to avoid 12-hour days, but I doubt that if I really pushed it I could have done it or would want to do it in less than 16 or 17 days, like some kids and superhumans. It was of course amazing. I intend to post a TR once I get my website version together...soon.

[cgundersen]

Hi Daisy,
I vaguely recall that there have been HST posts in which folks covered big chunks of the HR at speeds that surpass what most mortals achieve on the JMT (I think your note above meant to say "completed" but has "competed" a possibly Freudian slip that led to this speed focus). I've never felt compelled to do it just to do it, but because the HR takes one into some utterly amazing, low-impact terrain, there are only a couple tiny segments that I've missed. And, because I reckon that I move more at speeds comparable to what my namesake, CAMERONM, claims in his post, I sporadically look over my shoulder to see whether someone is rapidly overtaking me from the rear. The young lady who I swear was moving as if she were on a zip line over Potluck Pass this summer was a case in point. Slow and deliberate is more my mantra. But, even slow and deliberate can land you in some glorious spots! As for CAMERONM, I'm looking forward to the photos. cameron

[dgravlin]

I did it in segments, over the course of a few years. Have a young family so it was not practical to take off several weeks in a summer to do it. For me, it opened my eyes (literally) to the true Sierra. XC travel gets your eyes up and forces you to take in your surroundings. I had done the JMT in 9 days (again, a limited window of time due to family) so the contrast between putting in 20+ miles a day on trail for the JMT, and doing the SHR was very stark.

Since then, all of my Sierra adventures have included heavy doses of XC travel. Thank you, Steve Roper!

[oldhikerQ]

I have only done 2 (?) sections. First did Mono Pass to Mammoth Lakes. For Section 2 we started at the Postpile and made it to 1000 Island Lake whereupon we were rained out. That's where I learned to hate Nancy Pass.

[longri]

The speed thing on the SHR is relatively recent. But despite few people openly trying to set a record the current fastest time is pretty daunting at something like 4.7 days.

I've done most of it in sections. There's some really nice terrain although in places I'vw wondered why Roper chose the route he did. For example, why go over Snow Tongue instead of Alpine Col? Anyway, lots of ways to scramble through the Sierra and this prepackaged route (you can even get dedicated maps now) is likely getting more and more popular.

I tried once to do the whole thing in a single go, aiming for 14 days, but I was in horrible physical condition at the time and had spent zero time at elevation prior. So after the first several days I found I just couldn't (or didn't want to) maintain the same pace. Lacking sufficient time (and food) to take it slower I didn't finish. But I might try again. Even my failed attempt was a lot of fun. Most of the route is well worth repeating.

[freestone]

As I recall, Roper never could understand why someone would want to speed hike the SHR because of the beautiful terrain the trail traverses. I think he never intended it to be a through hike like the JMT.

[longri]

As I recall, Roper never could understand why someone would want to speed hike the SHR because of the beautiful terrain the trail traverses. I think he never intended it to be a through hike like the JMT.

Did he say or write that? I know that in the book he wrote that most people would likely do it in pieces rather than all at once, which he estimated would take about a month. But I don't recall any admonishments (and he does like to admonish at times) about traversing the route as quickly as possible. In some ways it would be odd given that Roper was one of the early practitioners of speed climbing ascents.

I imagine he's probably conflicted about the popularity of the route, both happy that people are enjoying it and sad that it is becoming increasingly impacted. He wrote about this in the book, about how he took a long time trying to decide if it were better to write the book or keep his route private.


I've always taken photocopies of his route. Sometimes his digressions about history, trees, or geology have been really interesting to me. Other times I've been frustrated that he doesn't just get to the point.

One time I temporarily misplaced a page. We arrived at Lake Italy, sans the appropriate Roper page, and made the decision to go around the east side of the Lake. It's a natural mistake as it looks great at the start. Once you get to the place where you realize you blew it you've already gone a long way. It's a dangerous section that we crossed that day, one we read about that night in the tent when we found the missing page.

[wildhiker]

I've bought and read both editions of Roper's book and have enjoyed imagining hiking the whole route. I think some of the passes would be too much for me and that 5,000 foot climb out of Roads End in Kings Canyon at the start would probably do me in :-). But I have used his book as inspiration for some places to go cross-country and done a few sections of his "official" route.
-Phil

[Shhsgirl]

Perhaps this is a backhanded way to post a trip report. My husband and I have done most of Roper's, in installments, over the past several years. I've posted trip reports on all. We skipped Snow Tongue Pass, and don't intend ever to do it. One year, a horrible thunderstorm prevented me from going from Palisade Lakes up Cirque, Potluck, and over Knapsack Passes. Instead I bailed to the trail down the Staircase, and then up through Dusy Basin and out.

This last August our daughter wanted a short trip, so we suggested the South Lake loop through Palisade basin, over the aforementioned passes, and then out via the trail to South Lake. I have been over Knapsack Pass several times, but had forgotten much of the Dusy Basin side of it. My husband is very slow going uphill, and gets annoyed when we wait, so we agreed to meet "at the foot of" Knapsack Pass in Dusy Basin. Our plan was to camp there and go over the next morning. Daughter and I got to the foot of the pass at about 4:00 p.m., and saw that the technical "foot" of the pass is talus, with no camping (this is what I had forgotten). We therefore had the choice of camping at the lakes roughly south of the foot of the pass, or those north of it. We stood there, at "the foot of the pass" for a while, until it got to be about 4:00 pm and threatened a storm. Then we hightailed it up to the lakes north, to set up camp. All the while we were yelling down the hill for my husband. As we were setting up our tarps, a woman and her brother, from across the lake, came over and said they heard the commotion and wondered what was going on. I told them we were supposed to meet my husband, but he had not arrived. We agreed that he was probably camped at the lakes below and that we would find him in the morning. We dove into our tarps just in time and rode out the storm, which lasted for about 2 1/2 hours, and blew fiercely. We were camped in the same campsite that my husband and I had camped in with our oldest daughter many years previously.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn, packed and perched on a large rock that overlooked the base of the pass. I knew we had not missed my husband, because he is a late riser. We called and yelled, but there was no answer. About 10:00 am, the party from the night before came by on their way up the pass. I told them I was starting to get worried that he had fallen somewhere back in Dusy Basin. The alternative, that he had gone rogue, I told them, would piss me off very badly. The woman (who was about my age) shared that her husband had gone rogue the summer before on their trip and that was exactly why he wasn't on this trip. But we agreed that my husband had not gone rogue, because that meant he would have been crossing the pass in the dark in the thunderstorm. Her adult son took what amounted to a missing persons report from me and said that if they ran across him in Palisade Basin, they would send him back over to us.We all thought the chances of that were slim, and that he was probably back in Dusy Basin somewhere.

Daughter and I went back to our campsite of the night before, and set up our tarps. We then started back across Dusy Basin, the way we guessed he might have come, calling and calling. We went slowly, zigzagging back and forth, our imaginations doing nasty things to us. After several hours of this, we heard him call us.

He had met the woman and her son and her brother as they came to the top of Knapsack Pass. He met them at about noon, when he was hiking up to the top of the pass from the Palisade Basin side without his pack, which was halfway down the Pass on a patch of grass. He had to camp there the night before because the storm got so bad and it was pitch dark. When he met them, the woman's son said rather severely, "Are you Scott?" He knew right then he was in trouble. He told us later that he made some cheerful comments to the woman and her brother and son about his plans for what we would do in Palisade Basin, but the woman's brother, who had very great understanding, interrupted him, and said, diplomatically, that perhaps it wouldn't be best to mention those plans to me right away. It turned out that husband had arrived at the base of the Pass as it got dark, and had just headed right up and over it, impending storm and all. He had had to camp on the ledge on the way down because the storm had become too severe, and the ledge turned into a puddle.

After speaking to the woman and her brother and her son, he came immediately down to us in Dusy Basin without his pack, assuming that we would pack up again, for the second time that day, and head over the pass, with another storm impending. I said no thanks, and "asked him very nicely" to please go get his stuff and join us for the evening in Dusy Basin. Our daughter went with him, and I waited in our camp. They got back just before the storm hit, and he had to pitch his tarp in the rain, yet again, which served him right. The next day we went over the pass together, and camped in a beautiful spot. But because a day had been wasted in SAR operations, we couldn't go over Potluck and Cirque, so we came back out Knapsack and out. After having the whole thing out, we decided, and meant it, that the snafu was both our faults, for having made vague plans. And that's the story of how my dear, seventy- year -old mule of a husband crossed Knapsack Pass six times in three days. To this day I don't really know why he decided to go over the pass in the dark in a storm, but oh, well. He will never get left to meander along on his own again, that's for sure!