High trailheads - 10,000'

[East Side Hiker]

You guys are amazing. Tim, etc., your pictures are fantastic. I know that cactus... I've seen it for years. I abandoned my Tehipity Valley trip for this year. I'm going to Sorensen's for 3 days instead, with my darling. I still have the whole month of Aug off. I hope I can go over Lamerk Col and do my month-long excursion. I am having doubts though. But I won't waste my time.

[Wandering Daisy]

"the white mountains are white" -- that is good! I purposely go to the White Mountains when they have snow so I do not have to worry about water sources since I can always melt snow. I have done several early June backpacks from the east side lower trailheads and found it very wild and wonderful. Never even saw another person, ever. I found the snow more like Rocky Mountain snow (light and consolidates to styrofoam type texture) rather than Sierra cement. I could walk on it early AM but when I broke the crust it was wallowing in very light stuff. This year if I go I am going to take snowshoes. If the ridge road is open, the Whites are a high trailhead area - otherwise, you had better like elevation gain cause it is almost 10,000 feet gain from the bottom!

Another high Sierra trailhead is Onion Valley.

Although not high in elevation, the trailheads around Lodgepole (Wolverton, Crescent Meadow) allow entry into the Sierra with moderate elevation gain. And although Mineral King is higher, trails immediately and steeply gain elevation. So I do not think less elevation gain can directly be correlated with the trailhead elevation. A trailhead as low as Road's End in Kings Canyon is not bad once you get up the initial switchbacks on Bubbs Creek. After that it is easy walking up the drainage.

[East Side Hiker]

Yes, Onion Valley is just over or at 9,000 (9,200'?). The flower displayes there are fantastic, especially the last 1/4 mile of the road on the right before the trailhead.

And there's that trail to Golden Trout Lakes, and the lakes to the north that have great wildflower displayes though te trails are little steep).

But there's so many people.