East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by giantbrookie »

As noted by others there are east side entries that are not so strenuous but give you good High Sierra access with dramatic scenery up front.

Virginia Lake and Green Creek are easy and scenic and they open give you quick access into the wilds of northern Yosemite. For an off trail start, going out of Saddlebag L. into the McCabe Lakes is another.

As one heads south Rush Creek is not nearly as hard as the "6000' plus" passes (Taboose, Sawmill, Baxter, Shepherd) but it is kinda hot, dusty, and covered in horse poop. It does open up a world of possibilities, though. The various Devil's Postpile entries are pretty mellow and are the prime ways to get into the E. side of the Ritter Range, L. Ediza, Thousand Island Lake and such. Duck Pass out of Mammoth is another really mellow one that gets you quickly into nice country in the Fish Creek drainage with some off trail options off of it (such as Ram and Franklin Lake basins). You've done McGee, Pine Creek and Piute, but Bishop Pass is another fairly mellow one that gets you quickly into really gorgeous territory, as is Kearsarge Pass.

As for the hard ones and the question "Would I do it again?" and noting that I will be celebrating my 57th birthday in three weeks... the answer is a resounding yes. Sawmill starts the lowest and my wife and I got a super late start because we were doing this pay shuttle thing and the driver was running real late. A late start at Sawmill can be brutal because of the heat--we wiped out 5L of water before we reached the first water on that trail. I like Sawmill the most of the hard passes because of the quality of Sawmill Lake. I haven't done Baxter because the other three are more convenient to the places I want to go W of the crest. With Shepherd it is the playground of the Upper Kern whereas Sawmill and Taboose give you access to some of the best of the upper Kings. I think the reason I haven't done Baxter is that you can probably expend less effort to get to the W side of Baxter going over Kearsarge and Glen Passes and see a greater variety of scenery en route (although that Baxter would have far fewer people).

Another consideration for using E side passes is getting to destinations more efficiently than from the W side. In that sense , you can get to the Baxter Pass nearly as quickly from Road's End, and the same can be said for Sawmill (but you'd miss Sawmill Lake). New Army, Shepherd, Kearsarge, Taboose, Bishop, Duck, Virginia, all offer quicker access to stuff at the crest or just W of the crest than west-side approaches. This difference in time is certainly enough to offset the driving time distance coming from the W side. This has been a major factor in my trip planning over the years. Until 2005 I lived in the SF Bay Area, and now, in Fresno, my location gives the southern W. side entry an even bigger edge in terms of driving time, but I have still done trips out of the E side, not only because of 'end in itself' nature of some of the E side locations but because these trips also got me to locations W of the crest much faster than I could reach them from the W side. The Little Lakes Valley to North Lake shuttle I did last summer is a good example of this (featured E side passes were the shoulder N of Bear Creek Spire (off trail) from Little Lakes Valley and Piute Pass). It would have been a longer haul to hit my targeted destinations from Florence Lake or Bear Creek Diversion Dam (and it wouldn't have been as fun). In fact I had originally considered doing a version of this trip from the W side (would have been a Bear Creek Diversion Dam-Florence shuttle) but concluded I could see far more nice territory in the same amount of time going from the E side.
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: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by Hobbes »

SSSdave wrote:I'll be starting solo up Shepherd about 9am.
I've done Shepherd & back 3 times, with the last time being my latest start @ 9am. Like you, I was @ the IAVC at 8am to pick-up my permit. (You may consider getting there by 7:30 since an impromptu line can form outside if others are waiting for the office to open as well.) I then had to gun it back to the TH and rush getting started.

Even managing to get going by 9am, I think it was a mistake on my part to start that late. Even drinking a lot of water, I was still getting very dehydrated and was getting worn out by the time I reached Anvil. The two previous occasions I had started between 5-6am and was able to make it over and onward on day 1. This last time I was looking for an excuse to stop, so with a major monsoon completely obscuring the pass in dark rain/clouds, I spent the night camped in the Pothole.

Since you are planning on stopping @ Anvil anyway, it may not make that big of difference. However, if there's any way you could get your permit before the FS closes @ 5pm (Mono station?), you'd have two options:
- head up to the saddle in the late afternoon/early evening - this requires hauling water since it's a dry camp. I don't like it, but plenty of people do it.
- start @ 5am the next morning and make the pass the first day. Even with a long layover @ Anvil around lunchtime, you could head up & over by 3pm and spend the night up on the plateau. Since you're a photographer, you'd have Willy, Tyndall and the GWD providing an excellent backdrop for sunset/alpenglow/evening shots.
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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by freestone »

Excellent advise on leaving from the trailhead in the early hours of the morning to avoid the heat. However leaving later because of delays is not a deal breaker. I usually do not get on the trail head much before 10AM and while it is hot the first couple of miles, altitude is gained rapidly into cooler air.

Baxter wins the ugliest to most beautiful category, of the 3 Beasts. The lower portion is depressingly burned out by a forest fire, the upper canyon is absolutely pristine and untrampled with forest and meadow, surrounded by the crest peaks.
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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by SSSdave »

Thanks for that input Hobbes.

This will be my first time over Shepherd but have studied the situation extensively and my photo planning west of the pass is detailed hour to hour each day to work through a list of terrain to ramble over. The trailhead is down in sagebrush at 1950m 6.4k feet. Shepherd Pass is at 12040, 5600 feet higher but the trail requires another 800 feet due to up and downs.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=36.71684,-118.29889&z=15&t=T

The Symmes Creek crossing, the last certain water is up about 500 feet at 2100m 6.9k. Another 1k up at 2400m 8.0k the switchbacking trail moves near an early season stream channel that I plan to use. It is another 1k up to the 2770m 9070 foot ridge crossing, 2700 feet of total uphill. Once over the ridge the next streamlet on the map at 2700m is supposed to be reliable early season. Likely take a long break, even a 2 hour nap maybe. And if I am too beat will camp there. The trail then drops down 600 feet to 2680m 8500 before rising up 800 feet to reach Mahogany Flat at 2840m 9300.

Accordingly I don't expect water issues on the lower section. The key for little old me carrying nearly 60 pounds for the 10 days, will be moving slow, stopping very frequently, and taking breaks. Thus from 9am I have 11 hours of daylight to do 3300 feet in order to reach Mahogany Flat. Then Saturday morning after a long nights sleep can start continuing up in the cool of dawn and will be satisfied to only reach the bench northwest of The Pothole at 3430m 11250 or up 2000 from Mahogany Flat or 2.8k from the streamlet. Either way the second day is not as unpleasant as Friday.

Then Sunday morning will either rise early dawn see the atmosphere to the east is not too clear and climb the remaining 700 feet to the pass by sunrise or see the atmosphere clear to the east thus linger on the bench for photography that unlike The Pothole that is down in a shaded hole, receives early sunrise light and has a pond possibly worth a reflection image of Mt. Kieth that ought be nicely orange. In any case ought be over the pass by 7:30am that is exactly when photography west of the pass will be best for a couple more hours. From there should reach the top of Bighorn Plateau by midday where I will base camp well away from the trail 2 or 3 days probably underneath some gnarly foxtail pine. From there I go north to base camp again in a very sweet spot in the Casper lake zone

David
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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by Hobbes »

SSSdave wrote:Shepherd Pass is at 12040, 5600 feet higher but the trail requires another 800 feet due to up and downs.
[EDIT 7/16/2016 - I revised Sawmill distance from 7.5 miles to 9.2 after I came across a TR that had actual recorded way-points from Woods lake.]

A couple of years ago, I was curious enough about the 4 bad boys that I put a little chart together measuring summit, total distance, gain & gain/mile. Here's my summary:

Baxter 12,303' 7.5m 6,266' 835'/mile
Sawmill 11,348' 9.2m 6,755' 734'/mile
Taboose 11,417' 8.4m 5,971' 715'/mile

I've been up Taboose & Shepherd, but not Sawmill or Baxter. I've been up/down Shepherd enough (6 times) to know that it's actually 4 hikes in one:
- initial approach gains just 400' over the first mile ie the 4 creek crossings
- switchbacks up to the saddle gain 2,420' over 3.5 miles or 691'/mile
- descent to Keith creek drops 590' over 1 mile
- final ascent gains 3,511 over 4.5 miles or 780'/mile

If you average it all together, you get a misleading picture, especially the total gain from the TH @ 6,300' to the pass @ 12,041'. So, the way I now look @ Shepherd is to just add the two climbs together. That is, I take out the 1 mile easy approach stroll via the crossings and the 1 mile descent. My new stats now look like this:

Total gross gain: 5,931'
Total miles: 8
Gain/mile: 741'/mile

This puts the gain/mile Baxter, but ahead of Sawmill & Taboose. If you consider just the last leg from Keith creek to the pass, the gain/mile jumps to 780'/mile.

Once you hike the trail, these numbers will make a lot more sense in depicting how the trail actually physically feels as you climb (or descend). In fact, the boulders are so hard, the final headwall is so steep, and the scree so loose (it's just a use trail at this point, one that changes due to slides, cuts, etc), that even narrowed down averages don't fully depict how long/difficult the final leg is from the Pothole.

Even with all that, it's a great way to get into the Sierra. Not that many people on the trail itself, and unlike the 3 others, you can completely miss coming near the PCT/JMT. That is, Baxter has its lakes, but then you have to descend down near Rae to go elsewhere. Sawmill has its lake & Woods, but it too requires you to come down if you want to go somewhere else. Taboose probably gets you more places, but Shepherd takes the cake: you can head directly south over Rockwell pass to WLB & Wales (bypassing the JMT/PCT altogether), or you can head east to upper Kern, GWD & Kaweahs.
Last edited by Hobbes on Sat Jul 16, 2016 10:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by freestone »

Is the big washout on Shepherd's repaired now?
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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by maverick »

Is the big washout on Shepherd's repaired now?
Recent TR reports it being in worse condition than previous years.
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I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.

Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member: http://reconn.org
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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by Hobbes »

I noted above that I revised my stats for Sawmill pass. I don't know if I've posted this chart before, but it has ranked data on different passes & peaks:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

If you have any comments, suggestions, etc, please let me know and I'll take a look and revise as necessary.
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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by sparky »

The eastside is really great. Virtually every trailhead that leads into the mountains is a winner. Lots of great options for short trips, long trips, easy trips, hard trips, on or off trail.
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Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?

Post by BSquared »

maverick wrote:
Is the big washout on Shepherd's repaired now?
Recent TR reports it being in worse condition than previous years.
I'm curious about that, too. Has anyone reading this been over it later in this summer? A climber we met on the SP trail last year told us they were going to be working on the washout this summer, but I have no idea how he knew. There was a crew working on the lower section of the trail when we went up last August (Symmes Creek drainage), but we didn't think to ask them about the washout.
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