Ropers High Route logistics

All discussion related to transportation to, from and within the Sierra Nevada. Need directions or flight information? Info on road conditions? A ride to the trail head? Can you offer a ride, or do you run a transportation business or shuttle service for the Sierra Nevada? Come on in and post the details!
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Wandering Daisy
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Ropers High Route logistics

Post by Wandering Daisy »

I am doing Roper's High Route August 3- Sept 4 in three approx 10-day sections. I have purposely chosen to do this route slowly (7-8 miles per day) to really enjoy it. My husband will join me for the middle section from North Lake to Mammoth and we will hike this section much slower (only averaging 5 miles a day) so we can fish. Here's the problem.

Husband does not want to consider public transportation therefore we need two cars to shuttle between trailheads when he joins me. Husband prefers to stay in motels at beginning and end of our middle section and south to north is best for him because North Lake entry is easy and we can nearly camp anywhere first night. Husband is doing hunting trip first week in Aug so I have to get myself to the first trailhead. We can quite efficiently do this if I leap-frog the High Route sections instead of doing the route as a contiguous south-to-north hike. We save 900 miles of travel and an extra day and half requiring one to two more nights in motels. This amounts to nearly $300 savings!

So here is my tentative plan. 1) Drive to Mammoth Lake dropping off food North Lake, and solo hike to Mammoth to Twin Lakes (6 days to Tioga, 4 days to Twin Lakes), 2) hubby picks me up at Twin Lakes we drive to Mammoth, park his car here, take my car to North Lake, and hike North Lake to at Mammoth (11 days), 3) At Mammoth, we take his car and drive over Tioga Pass -Wawona-Fresno-Cedar Grove. He drops me off and drives home (to Sacramento) and I do the south section (10 days) back to my car at North lake. Then I drive home.

I have already done about 75% of this route as parts of other trips. I really want to do the route as a "Through Hike". Does leap-frogging the route like this really detract from the concept of a "through hike"? Other than go out and re-supply and shower and two nights in a motel I am not taking more than a day's break. However, I will not do the route exactly in contiguous miles.

I can also reverse this plan and go north-to-south with the same driving savings. The only problem with this is that Day 1 on trip wtih hubby is committing - no water sources until Deer Lakes. We plan to use Lake George as the trailhead to avoid the Reds Meadow bus hassles. I will be aclimated, but he will not! Advantage is that I also prefer to do the passes north (hard side) going up and south side (easier) going down. In this case I would do 1) North Lake to Cedear Grove, 2) Mammoth to North Lake, 3) Twin Lake to Mammoth.

Any comments on these plans? Am I missing something?

PS if anyone is interested in joining me, send me a personal message.
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paul
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Re: Ropers High Route logistics

Post by paul »

This is really just a personal preference, but as you asked for opinions, I'll say it; for me, I'd want to do the whole thing continuously in one direction and not come out to civilization and drive in the middle of the trip. I find a big difference in my experience when I am "in" for a longer period, two or three weeks away from a road being significantly different from one week. From your posts here and on another forum I can tell you have lots of experience, so you may have your own opinion about this. I understand the advantages of your proposed schedule, but if it were me I would try to find a way to do it straight through.
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Re: Ropers High Route logistics

Post by Wandering Daisy »

Thanks for the opinion. If you never come out, how do you propose to resupply? And doing one-way how do you do the trailhead transportation? I have nobody to take me to the starting trailhead. I have been reading the PCT journals and those guys go out to civilization regularly, eat lots of food, go the store and get suppies and hitch hike from trailheads to town so I assume these actions do not degrade from the "through-hike" definition.

I agree that a continuous hike would be ideal. I have spent plenty of time in the past out 30-35 days straight with horsepack resupplies, so I know how wonderful it is. Logistics would be a lot easier if Roper had started and ended his route on the same side of the mountains!
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paul
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Re: Ropers High Route logistics

Post by paul »

Yeah, it's tough to work these things out. As for resupply, you can come out just to the trailheads in some spots - North lake for one, I'm sure you could arrange a resupply at the pack station there. At Mammoth, you'd have to come out slightly, unless you do Red's Meadow, and that's practically "out". The driving is tough. I went through this for a trans-sierra ski trip this spring - and then had to come out the same side we went in due to having a foot and a half of fresh snow dumped on us so that we couldn't keep up to our scheduled pace. Did all the driving for nothing. Now I'm looking to try again, and If I don't have a partner I'll have to ski across, resupply and turn around and ski back, since I can't find a transportation option any better than that.
You can get to Cedar Grove without a car - bus to Fresno, these guys from Fresno to the park:
http://sequoiatours.com/
And I expect you can do that the other direction as well. But I realize your situation is more complex, due to your spouse's schedule and plans. I'm really just saying that in a perfect world...
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Re: Ropers High Route logistics

Post by Wandering Daisy »

If we waited for the perfect conditions to do our trips, we would never leave home! I am not a hard-core purist and less than perfect is often what I have to deal with.

Thanks for the bus info. The NP web site shows a shuttle bus to Giant Forest from Visalia but not to Cedar Grove.
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