When and where was your first Sierra cross country and solo

[sparky]

MY first solo cross country trip in the sierra was probably 2002 or 2003 exploring the lakes above convict lake. Well it was off trail according to my map heh....found many use trails. Its beautiful up there.

[gcj]

Hi
My first ever Xcountry trip was up Copper Creek to the top of Goat Mtn. This was in late May, 1975 and that must have been a fairly heavy snow year, because we encountered solid deep snow above the 7500' level and left the trail behind at that point. We somehow managed to 'post-hole' our way to near Grouse Lake where we spent a long unpleasant night due to exhaustion, dehydration and altitude sickness (my first time above 10,000' as well). A total lunar eclipse contributed to the bizzareness of that long night turning the snowy landscape and the scattered clouds an eerie blood-red color for about an hour. In the morning the snow was firmly frozen for our final climb to the summit of Goat (otherwise I'm pretty sure we would have bailed and returned to the TH).

My first solo trip was a couple of months later. It was an attempt to backpack from the South Lake TH to Palisade Basin. I was way too inexperienced and returned a couple of days earlier than planned. I never even made it beyond Dusy Basin. There had been afternoon thunderstorms and I was pretty intimidated by them at that high altitude.