High Sierra Topix

Hi Mike

I found someone's site that has pictures of both sides of the pass, close up.
Scroll down towards the middle of the page to day 8 and check out the pic's.
http://www.tumtum.com/climbing/trips/Si ... art2.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nice report and a fine trip into some daunting weather. I too find Kaweah Pass much worse than advertised. The loose talus on the north side is the worst I've ever seen and I would take Pants Pass over it anytime. I would have been happy to see much of that rock covered by snow.

Thanks for the link, Maverick!

Mike

Hi All,
I was out of the loop there for a few days, but I'll try to cull some more shots of Pyra-queen from Kaweah basin and get them posted. I must say that Pyra-queen looked very inviting (compared with Kaweah Pass), but since we did not recall what was on the west side (and thanks to Maverick for the great shot from the west), we took the conservative route. I'm not surprised to hear that the loose-rock situation is normally even worse than what we hit on Kaweah; indeed, that's one reason my wife tends to like to get out when there's lots of snow. It often saves us from some nasty talus/scree. Still, I'd have enjoyed seeing a bit more open water than we did. I think we'll aim to go back there some autumn, as Q is thinking about (once we get a Blue Canyon trip under our belts).
CG

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10845599@N ... 343306369/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hi All,
Well, I'll need Greg to give me directions for activating links to Flickr. Regardless, if you copy/paste the above link into your web browser, it will bring up the several (relatively long range) shots of the Kaweah basin side of Pyra queen col/pass. Frankly, the pass looked pretty tolerable from below and though I'm sure that it's not a trivial route, it certainly looked to be preferable to Kaweah pass.
CG

Turns out there is an excellent webpage with close up shots of Pyra-queen col. I'll paste the link, but it may be necessary to copy it into your web browser to access the photos. The ramp on the Kaweah basin side looks a little iffy if one has a heavy load, but otherwise, it's a clear shot!
http://sierrahiker.home.comcast.net/~si ... td212.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CG

Thank you for the report and photos.