Most remote location in the sierra?

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Wandering Daisy
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

Easy is not necessarily correct! That is just lazy. I have the old TOPO program and even with this relic, it is not that hard to draw a line on the path you would take (trail or off-trail) . The program calculates the miles and makes a profile. Fine to use the straight-line method to pinpoint a short-list of possible areas, but then you need to do the work of figuring out walking miles. Better yet walking time, with a basic assumption such as 2mph for trail and 2 mph off trail and 1 hour per 1000 feet elevation gain.

Yep, we are all going to start walking straight lines to our destinations! Pretty handy to eliminate all the switchbacks. :D
Aw, shucks, I will have to bring my rope and rappel gear for those inevitable cliffs. :crybaby:
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by limpingcrab »

Well, we'll have a hard time calculating the most remote spot if we're talking about effort or time. The maps I posted were done with a computer program and I'm not sure how I'd calculate "most remote" by any other standards


By the effort/time standards I'd say this is the most remote I've been. About 1,500 ft up a wall about a mile upstream of Tehipite Dome and on the other side of the Kings River. The top would have been more remote if the Rough Fire didn't smoke us out 3/4 of the way up :mad:
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

Great climbing photo! I always wanted climb that wall, but alas, I aged out of technical climbing before I got to it. Now I am just another old ex-climber who backpacks.

Yes, it is some work to figure out walking distances, but not as hard as you would think. Sorry, I did not mean to be so critical. I was working on the update of my guidebook, and being in the thick of it, doing exactly what everyone says is to hard to do, I probably over-reacted. I have built a database for the Wind Rivers with over 1000 travel segments, each with miles, elevation gains and losses and a travel time estimate. Now I can just make any route by mixing the segments that and in less than half an hour get distances and time estimates. It is a "bite-the-bullet" thing to build the database, but once done it is really magic!

I am gradually building a similar database on the Sierra, but it lags behind my Wind River database. I was just saying that once your computer program narrows down the choices, it really is not that hard to go onto a program like TOPO and draw a line, with the distance. Just separate the trail portion and off-trail portion to get a rough time estimate. It really works quite well.
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by RoguePhotonic »

Rogue--Tunemah has had a fish population for years, there are several posts in the forum that document that fact. Not seeing doesn't necessarily mean no fish.
True but after 3 days there I never saw a single fish hit the water.

If I never see a fish but figure there are I normally think they are big. I never once saw a fish at Wallace Lake. :D
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by giantbrookie »

Kinda nice to see this thread regenerated. This is a good one for the "off season". I agree that remote is not only about the beeline distance from a road. The amount and degree of difficulty of off trail travel also factors in. I agree with WD about Dumbbells vs the Tunemah area. Dumbbells is certainly harder and I think the hiking time is slightly more even though the distance is less than Tunemah (routes compared would be Dumbbells via Bishop-Knapsack-Cataract vs Tunemah area from Hoffman Mtn and a nearly 100 percent off trail route to Blue Canyon as per Tunechuck 2008). I think Red Spur Lakes take a bit longer to get to than either Dumbbells or Tunemah. At my (current and 1993, 2008) speed I figure Dumbbells or Tunemah are reachable with my standard backpacking set up (ie not all that light) in about 1.5 hiking days whereas I'd have a very hard time making Red Spur Lakes in 2 days. In spite of this, I still think some of the Bermuda Triangle (trailless NW Yosemite) still seem more remote than anything I've experienced in my favorite Goddard, Whitney, and Triple Divide 15' haunts. I think what gives Kendrick Creek and vicinity an extra wild feel is the thick brush in addition to the rugged topography. I figure you can get to the most remote spots (such as below the reach of the creek above Edyth and below the big waterfall) in less time than it takes to hike to Red Spur Lakes, but the pain involved getting there may in fact be higher (probably still have scars on my shins from that brush).
Since my fishing (etc.) website is still down, you can be distracted by geology stuff at: http://www.fresnostate.edu/csm/ees/facu ... ayshi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by fourputt »

I haven't been to Tunemah Lake, but did camp down the hill a little at Bunchgrass [not so] Flat the day before plummeting 5K' down Tunemah Pass to Simpson Mdw. The "remoteness" was palpable but had a eerie feel in that we could see the lights of vehicles descending Hwy 180 to Cedar Grove!
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by limpingcrab »

Wondering Daisy, no worries, I didn't detect any harsh criticism, just entertaining internet discussion! SEKI did a not-too-technical GIS project kind of along the lines of what it looks like you're doing. Have you seen this? http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs ... r_j001.pdf

Man, all of this talk about Red Spur Lakes makes me wish I made a little side trip over there when I went through Kaweah Basin.

This was as close as I got (not close)
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

I have spent some time in northern Yosemite and it does not "feel" that remote to me. I have been to Edyth Lake- one day in and one day out, did not seem that bad. But then, I may have cheated - if you go early season snow covers a lot of that nasty brush. You simply walk over the top of it! Which brings in another factor - season and weather. Some places are actually easier to get to in the winter. And you can cover more miles on skis in a day than walking.

The feel of remoteness has also been altered with the new electronic gadgets. Just how remote can something feel if you can push a button on SPOT and get a rescue? Or listen to music at night? Or have a GPS that tells you where you are? Not that I am against the use of these things, but they do bring civilization into the wilderness and take the edge off of "remoteness".

I would also say that remoteness is a function of the distance from a maintained trail, as well as roads. Red Spur lakes may be the more remote from a road, but it really is not that far from a maintained trail. In that case I doubt there is anything in the Sierra that is really "big picture" remote. The Sierra simply has too well of an established trail system.

I have also done some backpacking in the White Mountains in Nevada. In spite of it being a small mountain range, I felt very remote many times. It is basically trail-less. I was trying to climb White Mountain from the east side and about 3/4 of the way up I really kind of freaked out. There, the fact that you get so far from water sources (a life requirement), is what makes one feel very strung out. There is a large wilderness area in northeastern Nevada that some say is the most remote in the lower 48.

Rogue- the fish thing. I would hesitate to say any particular large of deep body of water has fish or not (unless it has had the fish killed because it is a frog lake). According to F&G there are no fish in Barrett Lakes. But I was in there 15 years ago and caught fish at the outlet. And I met a fellow who showed me large fish he caught deep in the big lake. I cannot imagine that every last fish in that lake is gone. Seasonally, fish stay on the bottom, so the fact that you saw no fish in three days means little. I did not see fish in Tunemah Lake either. Tunemah is fairly small so perhaps fish could die off there, but Barrett Lake is really large.
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

The Nevada wilderness that is said to be the most remote is Jarbidge. I have never been there - sounds really interesting.

http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/wildView?WID=274
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Re: Most remote location in the sierra?

Post by Fly Guy Dave »

Wandering Daisy wrote:The Nevada wilderness that is said to be the most remote is Jarbidge. I have never been there - sounds really interesting.
I've been to the town along the main fork of the river of the same name, for fishing, of course. I did hike into the northern part of the wilderness a bit and it appears to be very lightly used. The road through the town is dirt and there are about 40 people that live there year-round. One gas station, one small store, one restaurant and two bars. Priorities, I guess! I took the road west out of there all the way to Hwy 225 and while I was driving and not in the wilderness area, I didn't see another vehicle or another person the whole time. A vast sea of sagebrush, rocks and a few pronghorn. It is indeed a beautiful area.

Yeah, I know...this isn't in the Sierra...my apologies...
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