High Sierra Topix

A fantastic weekend of peakbagging!

Started out friday night meeting with tomcat and rachel at Ballarat. Bob H joined us sat. morning at our entry point. We entered the Panamint range at Porter mine, summited Mt. Porter, and then traversed the ridgeline over to Sentinel Peak. Bob H was along for a dayhike, so he bailed before we summited Sentinel.

After summiting Sentinel, we descended via Magazine (we labeled it something else entirely) Canyon to Panamint City. We were surprised to have the place all to ourselves for the night. We stayed at "the hilton" cabin and checked out the ruins of Panamint City Sunday morning before descending Surprise Canyon back down to Novak.

After a cold one at Ballarat I headed back towards vegas hoping to bag some desert peaks along the way. Mt Perry made a great late afternoon/sunset hike to cap off Sunday.
After camping along the dirt road south of Dante's view, Monday morning was cloudy, colder, and there were passing showers (snow up high). The objective this time was Funeral Peak. Good thing for GPS because a good bit of this was a fog walk (might rain! ).

After the main course, dessert was today in the form of some devil's food cake (Devil Peak and Little Devil Peak) just to the west of Jean, NV.
Devil was a steep slog up talus and scree. Little Devil was more fun as it involved going up Devil Canyon past some old mining sites and the route itself afforded more solid rock to traverse than Devil Peak. Could clearly see the fresh coat of snow over on the Panamints from the summit.

All in all an outstanding weekend on the mountain! (Thanks again Tomcat and Rachel)

Friday night we stashed my truck at Novak Camp at the start of Surprise Canyon - then went back to Balarat where Jim, Rachel and I camped for the night. Bob Huey joined us the next morning. partway up Pleasant Canyon - Bob chickened out on the driving so we stashed his Explorer off to the side before a "crux" type class III 4wd move. then we all 4 jumped in the Toyota and continued up to near the Porter Mine. the caretaker had locked the gate so we had to backup a ways to find a place to leave the vehicle. the plan was for Bob to day hike and then return - drive the Toyota down to his Explorer - trade vehicles and stash keys. this meant a shorter drive for us on Sunday to fetch caravaned/stashed vehicles.

At the Porter Mine we met Lewis the caretaker. The hike to Porter Peak was less than 2 hours and then stayed on relative ridgeline with small ups/downs until time to peel off for the Sentinel summitt. We made Sentinel sometime after 3pm and enjoyed about 1/2 hour on top. we came down a ridgeline just west of Magazine Canyon partway - and then dropped into the canyon to finish our descent. most of the canyon was snow and loose rock - made for crappy but doable conditions. the weather was perfect on Saturday and the route was an excellent choice.


We arrived in Panamint City as the sun was setting over the Argus Range. since we were the only ones there we got choice accomodations and stayed at the PC Hilton. Sunday AM we explored the town for a couple hours and were headed downhill by 9am - arrived back at vehicles before noon. It was really ashamed to see Novak Camp burned out like it was. It was nice that we did not have to drive all the way back to Porter Mine Rd.(Bob was able to drive the Toyota down ok) that saved us at least 2 hours on Sunday.

2 new peaks for the year plus my first visit to Panamint City. I now have 13 of the named Panamint Range peaks with Slim, Mormon, & Sugarloaf left on my list(there may be others left too).

Hey Gator - congrats on all the extra summits too - glad to see a little rain did not scare you away.

pictures posted: http://members3.clubphoto.com/tom103807 ... uest.phtml

Really nice pictures Tom. I'd like to check out that area sometime. How bad is the road in Pleasant Canyon to Porter Mine? What kind of Toyota did you drive up there? Is it stock?

hi Kathy & thanks-
we used a 2005 Toyota Tacoma - stock 4wd - the road was much more pleasant(pardon the pun) than Goler a few weeks ago. If you want to do these peaks - I think this is definately the way to do it and enjoy the hike.

Looks like a nice trip. NormaR was at Panamint City before they closed the road. I don't see how they drove up the falls. :retard:

Did you get a monkey for Sierragator? We stopped at Kramer Junction to pic up a few more, and the girl who took our picture remembered us!

Nice pics!

we need a cow for the gator - but were not able to get in time for this trip

Oh yeah! I got a cow! Mooooo!

http://snownymph.smugmug.com/gallery/24 ... 61645-L-LB

Maybe a trunk monkey is in order for your next trip....?

http://www.trunkmonkey.com/

Sounds like a great weekend! Nice shots HTC.

norma

Shawn wrote:Maybe a trunk monkey is in order for your next trip....?

http://www.trunkmonkey.com/

LOL!!