Re: East side passes access to the backcountry questions?
Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 9:06 am
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.
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.