High Sierra Topix

Well, I had been wanting to do Mount Mallory for a while, so I decided to give it a try yesterday and Tom was kind enough to go along with me. Unfortunately, I woke up feeling like crap and it didn't get better as I hiked up the Meysan Lake Trail. By the time I got to Grass Lake I knew Mallory was out of the question for me. I told Tom that I wasn't able to do it, so we decided to split up. He headed for Mallory and I plodded along to Candlelight Peak, which made for a much easier day than Mallory would have been. The view was great from Candlelight, but it is so dry out there that it's sad.

From the gear I spotted stowed above Meysan Lake, it looked like Snow Nymph was out in the area too - maybe on Irvine??

Here are some pics I took:

http://kathywing.smugmug.com/gallery/2943420#158901502

Beautiful photos Kathy. Sorry to hear you didn't feel good and didn't make your intended goal, but glad to hear you made the best of it. Thanks for sharing.

Kathy, we saw you walking to Candlelight from the ridge, but didn't know it was you til we talked to Tom later. Yes, we did Irvine before heading out yesterday. We adjusted our trip when my knee got friendly with a rock the day before. We decided it was not a good idea to continue a 4 day trip in 3 with a bad knee, with most of the mileage and el gain in the next 2 days. It was a good decision to bail. Glad you were able to get a peak.

Great Pics Kathy! Sorry you felt crummy. It is really amazing to see the lack of snow at those altitudes this early in the season! How were the bugs?

Beautiful pictures Kathy. You know it's a small world when you recognize someone's gear stashed in the Sierra!

I kind of felt at a loss yesterday afternoon as I buzzed down 395 and didn't see any HST stickers.

I wish I could put a sticker on my truck, but I can't.

SN - Congrats on Irvine and I hope your knee gets better fast. I did it the easy way when I did it - via Arc Dome. That ridge you went up looked hard to me. I think I'm going to look at doing Mallory from Arc Pass too - might be easier for me than going up from Meysan Lake.

Skibum - There were a few bugs, but not very many. I didn't put any Deet on and they only bothered me when I'd stop in the trees for an extended period of time.

Sorry to hear you couldn't make it up Mallory, Kathy, but you did the right thing - instead of heading back down the trail you climbed another peak and got some beautiful pictures. I was with a large group in September 2002, trying for Irvine and Mallory but the leaders canceled when it snowed on us. I had asked everyone else, and finally the last guy agreed to do Lone Pine Peak with me. Fortunately the guy who carpooled with him agreed (was forced) to come with us, and it was a great peak with little effort.

I still need to do Irvine/Mallory/LeConte/McAdie (/...).

Where do you get HST stickers?

at least you managed to bag a peak - I turned around so close - I just started weighing the +/- factors at that point - it was -7 / +2 my math said not good ratio - I can always come back another day. I wish I had gone up the snow chute rather than wasting time playin gin loose crumbly class III rock

I had intended to summit Mallory today - got to within .5 miles and about 500 vertical feet. I heard Bob R. and SnowNymph calling from Irvine. I was solo for most of the upper part of the hike and this affected my decision of turnaround time. got rain on the way down. Bob and group got to WPstore while I was finishing my beer and burger(not neccessarily in that order)

congrats Kathy and SnowNymph for successful peaks bagged -(my Sunday report has successful peak - so the weekend was not a wash)

http://tomcat-rc.smugmug.com/gallery/2954450#159640559

Kathy-
Nice pics again... congrats on Candlelight. You can go back for Mallory!

Thanks everyone for looking at my pics - I love sharing them.

Tom - I'm glad you got a peak on Sunday. I'm sorry for getting you involved with Mallory and then not being able to do it. You got a lot closer to the summit of Mallory than I did.

I think next time I try it I'll start at Arc Pass like I did for Irvine.

Harry: I hear McAdie is a tough one. I looked at it from Arc Pass a couple of years ago and it looked like a tough one.

Candlelight was nice, but Mallory would have been nicer.

I'm still trying to figure out what was wrong with me on Saturday - headache, I felt like I had a fever, racing pulse, and shortness of breath, and my legs felt like I had done a tough hike the day before. I thought maybe it was altitude sickness, but then I remembered it happened to me before about a month or two ago on the Skyline Trail in Palm Springs and the starting elevation is only 500 feet above sea level for that trail.