Friday night found me shooting across the valley after work. I planned to stop driving when I got tired and sleep in the car for a few hours before continuing down to the Eatern Sierra Interagency Visitor Center in the morning to pick up my permit. Hopefully this would entail sleeping at an official rest stop on 395, and not a sketchy parking lot or spur road. The timing worked out, I made it through Yosemite in good time, and at about 11:30pm I pulled in to the rest stop just north of Mammoth and laid my sleeping bag/pad out in the back of the Subaru. It was a compromise – an official rest stop, yes, but still rather sketchy. I’d be lying if I said I slept well, but I was able to grab a few hours and soon my alarm went off at 5:30am, signifying the official start of my trip.
After stopping in Bishop for a chocolate croissant at Schaat’s Bakery and then coffee and a last email check at McDonald’s, I continued south through a still-slumbering Owens Valley and arrived at the Visitor Center just before 8am. The lottery system they have in place there didn’t seem to be too effective, but the backpackers waiting to get their permits weren’t overly put out and I chatted with a friendly woman who was doing a weekend trip over Kearsarge Pass with her husband and son as we waited in line.
Permit in hand, I drove back up 395 a bit and turned off for the trailhead at Independence. I’d never been to the Symmes Creek trailhead before, but a detailed report I found online made it easy to follow the right dirt roads, and while the end of the road was a bit rough it was much easier to navigate than the last five miles to the Taboose Pass trailhead, itself still doable for a low-clearance sedan.
Once at the trailhead, I got my pack ready and hit the trail. It was about 9am. I was moving quickly and effortlessly, and I had high hopes of making the pass by the evening. I even remarked as such to a couple of backpackers I met coming down the lower switchbacks up the side of the Symmes Creek Canyon. They expressed gentle doubts, but the older of the two reasoned that I was young and so I had a good chance of making it. I continued along up the switchbacks, passing several other backpackers coming down the trail, and made the top of the ridge in just over two hours. I was carrying about a 45-pound pack and estimates at mileage vary from 3.1 to 4.5 miles from the trailhead with nearly 2,800 feet of elevation gain, so I was making good time. The next section of the trail is famously (infamously?) downhill, so I churned that part out quickly too.
Unfortunately, on the next section of switchbacks up to Mahogany Flat I began slowing down considerably. At first I was confused, and irritated. This was my 18th day of backpacking in the past month, having covered well over a hundred miles during that time including some strenuous cross-country travel, all with a pack in the 40- to 50-pound range. Why was I slowing down? As I labored on, I quickly came to the frustrating realization that it wasn’t my legs that were failing me; it was my health. I had caught a cold after my 8-day backpack the week prior and spent the week at work coughing heartily. I had shrugged it off, figuring it would go away as quickly as it arrived. My immune system had other plans though, and by the time I reached Mahogany Flat I was generating a considerable amount of saliva and mucus and it was inhibiting my breathing. Grumbling to myself, I slowed my pace and took several short rests. Didn’t help. I struggled into Anvil Camp at 2:30pm, having taken a ridiculously long rest/water break an hour earlier and even napped a bit still strapped into the pack. No way was I going to make the pass in this shape. I barely had time to set up my tent and throw my sleeping bag and pad in before I crawled in after them and passed out.
It was only supposed to be a short nap. I even entertained the brief notion of continuing up toward the pass later in the evening once it got cooler, but once I fell asleep I didn’t wake up again until 6am the next morning. I had slept for 13 hours! Feeling guilty, but also much more refreshed and less congested, I got up, made what was supposed to be yesterday’s dinner for breakfast (corn chowder), then packed up and hit the trail early. Invigorated, I arrived at Shepherd Pass in about an hour and a half and took a break at the lake there. After fishing for half an hour, I left my pack at the lake and headed over to the nearby Williamson Bowl to cross an item off my bucket list that I had added over ten years earlier.
Once this detour was completed a few hours later, I headed down Tyndall Creek from the pass, contouring southwest to climb up Rockwell Pass and enter Wright Lakes Basin.
In the early afternoon my cold again started acting up, so I made camp early at one of the lakes on the north end of the basin and enjoyed a relaxing evening and nice sunset over the Kern drainage.
On Monday, I explored a few more lakes in the basin before heading south and entering the Wallace Creek basin, where I traversed high above Wallace Creek until I reached Wallace Lake.
This wasn’t a long hiking day, so I had plenty of time to fish for the plentiful goldens in the area. Camping near Wallace Lake, I was treated to some impressive alpenglow on Russell, Carillon, and the unnamed peaks near Vacation Pass.
Tuesday morning found me sleeping in, still trying to shake the last remnants of that infernal cold. Some more fishing took up the rest of the morning, and so it was nearly 1pm by the time I headed down the use trail following Wallace Creek to the junction with the John Muir Trail.
This was the part of the trip I wasn’t much looking forward to. I spent the next few hours taking the JMT north over Bighorn Plateau to Tyndall Creek, running across a handful of through-hikers heading south and checking out a few unnamed lakes in the Tyndall Creek drainage along the way.
I made camp for the night at Lake 3490 along the spur trail to Lake South America. The next morning I left camp at 8am and continued up the trail and over the small pass to reach Lake South America, where I fished for a little while before heading back the way I came.
Returning to camp and packing up, I struck out cross-country in a general northeasterly direction as I stayed high above Tyndall Creek, aiming for the quartet of unnamed lakes to the east of Diamond Mesa.
The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring these enigmatic lakes, the highlight of which was visiting the highest, largest lake beneath Junction Peak. At over 12,460 feet, this lake has a very austere look to it and is easily the highest lake I’ve ever visited. Judging from a discussion on this forum last year, it may also be one of the highest fish-bearing lakes in the entire range.
I thought seriously about camping there, but the elevation combined with the dropping temperatures of the preceding nights convinced me to get lower. Clambering down from my elevated playground, I dropped down to Shepherd Pass and high-tailed it back down to Anvil Camp where I retired for the night.
Thursday morning I got an early start back down the trail. Galvanized by the prospect of stuffing myself with greasy, fried, sugar-laden, wholly unhealthy foods in Bishop, I skipped down to the trailhead in just under three hours. After gamely trying to shock my system into a premature cardiac arrest and (fortunately) failing, I rolled back onto 395 to begin the long drive back through Yosemite and down to Fresno to stage for a 3-day trip into the Tablelands beginning the next day.
