Your first cross country hike?

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BrianF
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

Post by BrianF »

My first Sierra cross-country was also on my first Sierra backpack trip in '68 or '69. We went up to Ladder Lake from LeConte canyon, no use trail then, just looked at the map and went.
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balzaccom
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

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John Dittli wrote:At 6, I started going with my Pop and older brothers on annual week long backpacks into the Marble Mountain Primitive Area. Since he insisted on always going as soon as school got out (early June), most of the trip would be on snow. While not technically cross country perse', as we would try to follow trails, most of it would be following our noses.

The one lake we would visit that was trailless with or without snow, was Hooligan Lake (it had the biggest fish!).

Like Old Ranger, I'm forever indebted to my Pop for those early experiences.

By 12 we (the neighborhood boys) were doing adult free postholing trips up Mt Lynn in the Yolla Bollys.

First real cross country summer trip was again with one of the neighbor boys in the 70's. I'm trying now to even remember where we went, but I know it included Alpine Col, Humpherys Basin, Royce, Granite Park and getting shut down at the south col of Bear Creek Spire; ended up going over Gabbot instead. Not sure where we started or ended up, just know that that hooked me on xc forever.
Tube tents.jpg

And those are some might fine tube tents there!

First trip I ever took with just a friend, we camped in tube tents up out of Road''s End into the Roaring River and Cloud Canyon after Labor Day of 1970, I think. Man, it was cold!
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RoguePhotonic
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

Post by RoguePhotonic »

Second time this thread has come around so i'll bite again. :)

There are different types of going cross country such as when I randomly tried to climb Mt. Morgan in 2008 and just picked a ridge to climb up but the real first cross country trek for me was probably the start of my 2009 hike. I think I decided to climb Alta Peak and drop down from it because I wanted to go to Moose Lake and I thought it would be a good way to go. Of course I over planned and completely miss judged the terrain since all I had back then was a larger scale map to go on. Regardless I was able to make my way down the East ridge and over to Moose Lake, across the Tablelands and down into Deadman Canyon without much trouble. My dad on the other hand that was along did not have much fun doing this and neither did I because I was so out of shape while I did this. I also decided not to bring any bug juice that year so I would hike with my rain shell on to keep the mosquitoes from biting me which caused me to over heat and sap my energy further.

It took allot more cross country to learn how to do it right in terms of miles. It took even more to get passed the draining mental fatigue of going cross country. Now it's all the same to me. I just go where I want to go in the Sierra whether there is a trail or not.
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lostcoyote
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

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my first one.... okay, i was 17. (1976)
me and my buddy were going to do harrison pass on a loop trip beginning and ending at cedar grove. we went in over forester (late june after high school ended) loaded with lots of snow. went around to lake south america and then up to harrison. it has a nice cornine atop but i saw a way down on the east side going over the rocks. there were also 3 guys coming down from atop andys foot pass. my buddy had cold feet and so we turned around, went south to the kern, and then did colby pass/avalance pass. i thought the guys doing andys foor pass were studs and i wanted to be a mountain goat like the way they were hightailing it down the talus.

so i wanted to do harrison so bad after that, the next year, i graduated high school and did a solo trip from cedar grove to reflection and up harrison. went south from there to this unnamed lake just east of table mountain and named it 3-bay lake cuz of the three bays on its north side. i now call it casper lake after it's ghostly shape on the map. to finish that trip, i headed on down over to the bighorn plateau and then up wright creek to the large lake west of tyndall. climbed tyndall, and then headed out. i felt like a pineer and was hooked on x/c ever since.
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John Dittli
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

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lostcoyote wrote: i now call it casper lake after it's ghostly shape on the map.
Too funny, I call that Casper Lake as well. Nice place.
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John Dittli
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

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balzaccom wrote: And those are some might fine tube tents there!
You bet! Ultra light before it was cool \:D/
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balzaccom
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

Post by balzaccom »

I was right there with you! 1964 in Paradise Valley, Kings' Canyon, and a bright orange tube tent.
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Jimr
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

Post by Jimr »

First real x country hike was in 1985. We went form Courtwright Reservoir to South Lake. We hit Martha Lk, lowest lake in Goddard Canyon, Ionian Basin, Muir Hut then JMT to Dusy Basin and out. I was hooked after that and never go without a lot of x country travel.

Well, almost. Last year was different in many ways.
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RichardCullip
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

Post by RichardCullip »

My brother and I first went cross country back in 1975. Way back then we were hiking out of Mineral King and we enjoyed a loop up and over Franklin Pass to Little Claire Lake to Little Five Lakes and out over Glacier Pass. The cross country part took us over a saddle in the upper Little Five Lakes drainage over to Big Five Lakes and then over the saddle at the head of this drainage over to Spring Lake and up to find the trail at Glacier Pass. Fun stuff back then. Wish I had the legs and stamina to do it again.
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Re: Your first cross country hike?

Post by sekihiker »

My first cross country trip went over what I thought was Pants Pass and into Kern-Kaweah River country. It turns out it wasn't really Pants Pass but a saddle with a cliff on its east side (at least that's how Secor describes it in his guidebook). I've been over the "official" Pants Pass a couple of times and several dozen more cross country passes and routes as well.

In my experience, if you are after a little solitude or are looking for some pristine scenery, it's amazing how small a distance you need to go off trail to find it.
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