High Sierra Topix

9 miles 3223 elevation gain 5 hours
Hiked 2 OGUL peaks Sunday now have 24 went from the west unlike most. Rode quad down to the Cedars then up to Lyon ridge, started on a sort of use trail but pretty much followed the ridge mostly along the game refuge border. Made my way to Lyon peak, which when I got there is not Lyon, Lyon is the further east (the hump vs peaks in my opinion), just had to go up them all. From there dropped south around the peak/knob between Lyon and Needle peak, Think I may have been following Vaca russ and sports tracks. Got to west side of needle and climbed the chute with the stick at the bottom. Took picture of Needle Lake maybe my next destination as I wanted to go North and look for petroglyphs but it was cloudy and did not want to get rained on. Have already been to granite Chief so not on the agenda, so dropped off of Needle and found an easy? way down towards Needle lake so I decided to go for it and hope for no rain. Glad I did Needle lake is very nice with a great view of the peak and some interesting rock features I would not have seen. So in to trying to find petroglyphs I went to many granite blocks way further than I really wanted, unfortunately did not find any, but absolutely beautiful down to the North would like to go back. Then had to work my way back up to the ridge west of Lyon, lots of bushes to avoid and ended up in an area almost cliffed out but finally found a route. Up on the ridge followed it down and back to my quad for the beautiful ride out. Kristine

Kristine,

Wow, you already have bagged 24 of the Ogul peaks!? That is quite an accomplishment! Thanks for the report.

I really like the last picture. I think I saw that rock.

I just sent you a message about what I know about the petroglyphs in that area.

-Russ

Neat little hike. I haven't been to Needle, but I went up Lyon from the W several years ago getting a grad student started on his research. It is a great viewpoint to view some of the clues to the long-term (millions of years) landscape evolution of the northern Sierra, so I have a photo in a recent scientific (geologic) paper I published that was taken from near the summit of Lyon Peak and is somewhat similar to the last photo of this report.

Not to get off topic too much, but I have amusing memories of kickoff point off of the dirt road. When we were there a mess of folks were camped there because it was an aid station for some big ultra endurance run that was to head through there the next day. They were some fun folks. They had a portable generator going and were making margheritas in blenders. The brand new school 'burb we had taken there developed a flat (you could hear the air hissing out) just as we parked. The locking system for the spare was rather complicated and non-intuitive so my three students and I were spending a lot of time puzzling over how to get the darned spare freed up. This led to jokes from the crowd "How many geologists does it take to change a tire?" Certainly good times. It was in fact regrettable that we had to move to another student's field area and couldn't spend the evening with those people.

They do have aid stations there for both the tevis cup horse endurance and the western States 100 mile run. The geology aspect was fantastic wish I knew more but the difference in rock in very short distances was amazing! Now I just need to find the petroglyphs around there!