Trek route advise

[tim]

You mentioned the Evolution area, but from the west. This is our loop in that area from last summer: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9921" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (which also has the hot spring you requested, though the river crossing may be tricky in June). Getting to Florence Lake is very tricky without a car though. You've probably noted that we are in a drought and there is little snow up high. That may give some more options compared to a normal year, but June is still pretty early season.

We did 6 days (more like 4 days plus two half days), but there's plenty of side trips you could add: Darwin Bench instead of Evolution Lake on night 3, camp night 4 at Wanda and do a side trip to Muir Pass, then after Davis Lake head up to Martha Lake and explore around there. Depending on ability/interest in off trail routes (and snow conditions that early in the season) there are multiple options from Martha Lake to head over to the south and west (eg search for Finger Col and Confusion Pass) or east (Ionian Basin) or just take the Hell-for-Sure trail to Red Mountain Basin. That whole area will be deserted in June as it's quiet even in the height of summer.

[overheadx2]

If you wanted to go out of Florence, vermilion valley resort offers shuttle service. Several years ago we flew to mammoth and got a ride to parchers lodge at south lake and hiked over bishop pass to muir pass, evo valley and blarney hot springs to Florence lake and flew home from Fresno. A word of warning, even though we confirmed our pick up time and even sent an additional email they were very late picking us up because the driver didn't know he had a pickup and had stopped for lunch on the shuttle up and we were minutes from missing our flight. Plan on 3 hours to fresno, and an additional 3 - 4 hours for error.

[AlmostThere]

vermillion is at edison. Perhaps clarifying whether you had difficulty at Vermillion or MTR or the store at Florence resupplying would make it clearer what you are talking about.

[overheadx2]

Sorry about that, it was a little jumbled. Vermillion offers shuttles to and from both Edison and Florence lakes to Fresno. I scheduled a ride from Florence lake to the fresno airport through VVR. Every thing worked out, but the 5 hours we allowed to get to fresno was a little tight.

[Ska-T]

Hi koelnerzeilen. I plan to do a section or two of the Sierra High Route this summer. Let me know if you care to join me. That would solve your transportation concerns. If you find that you and your partner want to forge on alone, then that's OK, no bad feelings.

One section of the SHR that I've wanted to do for a while is not in Roper's book, but most of what I envision would follow Bill Finch's route found at http://sierrahiker.home.comcast.net/~si ... outeSouth/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; that goes from Kings Canyon Roads End to Mineral King. I plan to go south to north and I may take a few different passes from Bill's route. We could expand the trip a bit by visiting Kaweah Basin (or not). I know the area from Mineral King to Lion Lake (Glacier Pass, Black Rock Pass or Hands and Knees Pass, Little Five Lakes, Nine Lakes Basin, Lion Rock Pass) and from Lake Reflection to Road's End (Longley Pass, Cunningham Creek, Cinder Col, Brewer Basin, Sphinx Col, Sphinx Lakes Basin). The area between will be mostly new to me. Snow, especially at the Kings Kern Divide, will determine whether this route is good to go for a late June start, so alternative plans will be made, such as a loop similar to what Wandering Daisy suggested earlier.

I will be 64 yr old by the summer and most likely a lot older than you guys, but I haven't been put out to pasture yet. For example, my brother and I did a similar style high route last year in the major part of the Wind River Range traveling south to north and staying as close to the Continental Divide as reasonable. The route was about 110 mi with 20K ft of elevation gain and the bulk of the route was off trail.

By sabbatical, do you mean academic? I was a physiologist in the Univ CA system. Send me a PM if you are interested.

-Scott (Surf City, CA, USA)

[koelnerzeilen]

Dear Sierra Experts,

thank you so much for your invaluable advide. We decided to do the High Sierra Trail and then loop back as suggested by Wndering Daisy (and others), this is an area we did not hike in yet and we are really looking forward to it (received our permits today to start on June 22nd), two weeks out in the Sierra again, which are my favorite mountains (together with the Himalayas, but that is a noble competotor to end up in a tie). And who knows, since I also got hocked on the Winds range by you guys, this might turn out to be my new favorite,....anyhow: I will report once done, for the time being all I can do is to express me gratitude for your support!!!!

@Scott: this will be the first hike of a year long sabbatical and a trip dedicated to me and my lovely wife for 20 years, so this needs to be just the two of us and the Sierra, but I am sure our pathes will cross eventually. Thx for checking.

@All: your forum is a tremendous asset!

[maverick]

Where do you live in Europe? Since you do a lot of hiking, we would love any trip
reports, with pictures , of your hiking adventures, that you can posted in our "Beyond
the Sierra Nevada" section at the bottom. Thank you in advance.