High Sierra Topix

Old and slow,

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Ah the Winds...enjoy! And daisy I bet your kids are soooo grateful!

And old ranger...whew, that's a lot of cool planning!

I have 3 trips planned....2 in Yosemite and 1 in Inyo. Just got back from yosemite where we day hiked one day and skiied the next...was wonderful! And I hope to get to Iceland this summer to visit a granddaughter there!:) Land of Fire and Ice! Won't be backpacking, but hope to trek on horses for a few days!

Well, I guess it's just gonna be Mav, Jim & myself out there at Wallace in July. LOL

The family is taking our annual 395 drive/camp trip in late June up to Tuolumne. My 15 yo son is really starting to crank, so I was thinking we could do a long(ish) day hike up Lyell Cyn, but then he suggested doing Whitney instead. I've never done MW before as a day hike, so I've been running like heck down here @ sea level trying to get in condition.

July is my Horseshoe to Shepherd blitz, with a stop over @ Wallace.

Aug we're doing the classic Oregon coast drive trip down to Mendocino, SF & home.

I might try to slip in a fast 3 say trip in May to Puppet from N Lake if the snow level stays really low.

Well, I'm itching to try out some new ultralite gear this season. I'll probably start out with a low elevation trip in the Emigrant, possibly as soon as May. ( It's going to be a long season with the drought and all) I hope to do some solo week long trips, getting great Ideas here on where to go !!

Originally I had planned a big off trail shuttle originating at Edison and ending at Florence, but this may be nixed again (haven't been on a trip like that since 2008). I will certainly have some long west flank dayhikes that partly substitute for 2-3 day backpack trips. Although it looks like an early thaw is certain this year, I probably won't get up there until at least late June.

Hobbes wrote:Well, I guess it's just gonna be Mav, Jim & myself out there at Wallace in July. LOL

who is "signed up?"

Instead of a backpacking meet up you should all come out to the annual trail project at Reds Meadow from June 26th - July 7th. Then we can meet, hike the trails, work the trails, all while eating good food and actually having showers and laundry.

The big plan for a trip this year is not the usual, but a once in a life time cruise with the wife around the British Isles in late May. That will eat up all of my vacation time, so any Sierra trips after the cruise will be on my dime.

But I do have plans to done something. Top on the list is the Meet-up in Wallace Basin. I'd like to get there from the western side since I do not visit that area often, and would like to get to know it better. If the western approach is not feasible because of time, then I will check in with Mav to see if there is any space left on his permit over Shepard. If finances and vacation time does not allow that, then a late season trip over Taboose to summit Split Mountain since I did not get it done last year, then do some fishing in and around the Bench lake area.

rlown wrote:who is "signed up?"

Not me. I just jam up there in the am, get a walk-in permit and go.

I'm pretty much going no matter what. I've done various loops and min-thru hikes from the THs in that region (Horseshoe, Portal, Shepherd, Onion), but never end-to-end, thus missing the Wallace area. So here's the perfect opportunity.

I remember a ranger mentioning the spot as one of the GT holy grails. I also recall thinking I would never fish it - too far, too remote, big elevation gain/drop, too everything. After all, it takes 2-3 days of (pretty hard) hiking just to get there - so 4-6 days for transit alone.

However, I'm going to link up the hike with another notable mysto spot that I'm determined to spend at least a few hours fishing this time around.

Since this might be my last full summer vacation for a little while I'm going to make the most of it and make it memorable. The reason why I say this is because I am a student going into my Senior year in my undergraduate studies at Berkeley. I plan on doing Graduate school afterwards. So thus I might not have a full 2.5 months to wander the Sierra for a while. (P.S. If anyone knows a little bit about Sierra Nevada History I find it extremely fitting that I go to Berkeley and have a serious love for wandering the Sierra Nevada mountains every summer. A very large number of early Sierra explorers were Berkeley graduates or even Professors!)

Trip 1: I am an extremely avid photographer and thus a lot of my backpacking focus on making photographs of remote areas or areas that undoubtedly beautiful. So my first trip I have planned for is early June. I want to visit The Minarets region in the Ansel Adams Wilderness in probably 4 days. My plans on are getting some early season shots of the Minarets up against Minaret, Iceberg, and Cecile Lakes. I'll be shooting dry plates using a 4x5 field camera. The plates I coated myself so its' really an opportunity for me to take some shots of the area with a medium that hasn't been seen in that area since Ansel Adams himself!

Trip 2: My next trip is one I've been looking forward to finishing for over 3 years now. My friend and I planned on doing the whole JMT 2 years ago but due to some shoe issues we had to stop at the halfway point. Well this year we are planning on doing the whole thing again. The only reason that might fall through is if he gets a job that won't let him start after we finish. Keeping my fingers crossed that that doesn't happen. This should be about a 23 day trip with excursions into both 60 Lake Basin and the Upper Kern Basin where I hope to do some peak bagging as that has become another interest of mine.

Trip 3: I may be equally excited for this trip as the JMT. This one as of now I plan on doing solo. My plan is to start at Mineral King and go over Sawtooth Pass. From there I plan on trekking into 9 Lake Basin and then cross over into Kaweah Basin via Pyra-Queen Col. From there I plan on exploring Kaweah Basin and heading down towards Junction Meadow (Kern). From there I plan on heading north into the Upper Kern where I plan on peak bag and explore the area. After that I intend on crossing Harrison Pass and make my way to Lake Reflection. From there it's crossing Longley Pass to South Guard Lake where I plan on bagging Brewer and hopefully North Guard. After it's a short trek down into Cloud Canyon. I then make my way up Cloud Canyon to Lion Lake Pass and drop down to Lion Lake. At this point I plan on making the climb up to Lion Rock Pass and into 9 Lake Basin again and back down to the Big 5 Lakes. Then 1 day out via Black Rock and Glacier Passes to Mineral King. The plan is to do it in about 12-13 days. I'd say about 60% of it is cross country. I've been in several of these parts or at least seen them fairly close last year when I did a 110+ Mile loop of Deadman and Cloud Canyons. If you think this trip will be filled with unbelievable scenery and some of the most pristine areas in the Sierra you're absolutely right. That's why I'm so excited to go on it. At the moment I have no one interested in going with me. I haven't set any dates yet because I don't know when I'll finish the JMT but I think it will be late July into early August. PM me if you're at all interested in possibly doing a part of it with me. I don't hike too fast, but I do stop to take photographs.

Happy planning everyone!