TR: Avalanche, Colby, Kern Junction Mdw, Forester, Bubbs starting 12 Aug
Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2019 9:42 pm
Hi HST
Thanks for the wonderful information over the past few years. I’ve been a lurker for a while, partly because I’ve taken this long to get out into the High Sierra. So here is the TR of my first trip there.
The plan was to hike 7 days and 6 nights in a large loop (starting 12 August 2019), every two days crossing a progressively higher mountain pass, 10000, 12000 and eventually the famous Forester Pass at 13166 feet. We'd see alpine scenery and acclimate for a final push up Forester. With huge elevation changes and 10 mile days we'd be focused on the journey, not leisure. The feel of the hike would be wilderness and remoteness for the first four nights (we saw 7 people including 1 ranger and 3 trail crew in four days), then join the PCT and JMT for a day and a half and out the following (we saw 36 people in one day). Looking down from near Sphinx Creek towards Roads End. The brutal switchbacks up the side of the cliff at the start of Avalanche Pass (Sphinx creek)
The first day was agonizing, hiking up thousands of feet on switchbacks, cut into the granite face of the mountain. The infamously brutal Avalanche Pass is literally stairs dynamited into the valley wall. We were soon exhausted, leg sore with our heavy backpacks (7 days of food), and suffering from the altitude (8500 feet, home is sea level). A number of other factors made it miserable and a little uncertain in our minds: a large deli sandwich lunch that weighed on our stomachs, the map being wrong and my altimeter reading 500 feet out (the Nat Geo map and Caltopo show that the second set of switchbacks on Avalanche pass are far from the stream, in reality the switchbacks end near the stream; I didn’t calibrate the altimeter). Desperately, there were no flat spots for 1000 feet elevation gain. We finally found the first flat spot on the map near the stream to put up our tent, exhausted! The first flat spot on the Sphinx Creek side of Avalanche pass. It is fairly obvious on the map, as you cross the creek at 8500 feet.
We are always careful about bears and minibears. But what harm of leaving a shirt out overnight? A minibear ate neat holes all over the shirt presumably trying to get salt. Looking up Roaring River canyon.
We hiked up to Avalanche Pass, then down to Roaring River Ranger Station, and on for a few miles. Again we couldn’t find a flat spot in the few miles during which we decided to stop, eventually sleeping on a large granite slab over the river. We spotted a pacific fisher the next morning – very rare! The only flat spot, but there was evidence of others camping there, also bear scat.
Hiking up Roaring River we approach the Whaleback, which we had to traverse to the left up to Colby Lake. Taken from Big Wet Meadow which was surprisingly moderate on mosquitoes (relative to nearby areas).
Hiking up to Colby Lake we looked back down Roaring River Valley, in the center is Palmer mountain, and the saddle to the right is Avalanche Pass.
I walked the day to Colby Lake in flip flops, as I was starting to develop some heel blisters, and there would be lots of water crossings. This worked out well, I didn't get any blisters the whole hike, but we had very sore feet and legs, but no major damage. At Colby Lake we arrived at 4PM, early by our standards, a whisky, a bit of laundry and an Alfredo Pasta, with bacon bits and chicken.
Colby Lake was the best campsite of the trip, waking in the morning to a still lake and reflections of the opposite granite ridge, or the peak. That night the moon rose full, and it was very disorienting to wake in the night to see a bright reflection on the lake. We watched Scorpio set with Venus(?). More Colby Lake reflections
The following day was the crux maneuver of the trip. Could we get over Colby Pass? If not, we'd have retrace our steps. We arrived to find a single guy walking down - he'd given up. He couldn't work out the line to take, and didn't walk across the snowfield "By myself I don't want to get hurt out here, so I'm going back." This we thought was very reasonable. Unfortunately, he then left before we could look at the pass. We thought a lot about him over the next few days as the route he took back didn't compare to the grandeur of the mountains we saw over the pass. We scouted it and found a route as follows, labelled in the picture below: A) a easy walk/scramble around the bottom snow field to a very large boulder. B) a 40?foot walk across the snow field at the bottom. We walked across it without crampons, because it was full of sun cups, meaning we could walk in depressions, not on slippery angled ice. And the angle of the ice was low - we'd have fallen on our bums, not slid if we fell. C) we then had to scramble up to the trail, this was not very exposed. D) we walked up the trail for a few switchbacks (not shown to scale, arrows approximate). E) Further up the trail was obscured by more snow, and we had to scramble up a cliff, the cliff wasn't too steep, but the loose boulders were scary. The path was visible above us. F) Soon we made it back to the path and hiked up to the top, 12000 feet. I thought a lot about whether to include this much detail, as Maverick says he doesn’t give out route information as it reduces the adventure. I like this general philosophy. But I also thought a lot about the single guy who turned around, he made the right decision for him, but with this information his trip would have included some more great mountains. Colby Pass North side from near the top. Colby Pass from the bottom of the North side, the snow field at the bottom is obscured.
Having spent the morning climbing the pass 8:45 to 11:00, we now had 4000 feet to drop in the afternoon to Junction Meadow on the Kern. This was very, very long and steep, the most difficult on the legs of the whole journey. But lovely, lovely scenery. The hike down was very difficult, 4 days of hiking weighing on our weary legs. I promised that we'd have to go down the last 800 feet to Junction Meadow (our camp), but we were soon faced with a narrow hill UP! The cliff was to be surmounted BEFORE going down 800 feet! See below. The path is etched into that gap in the mountain. Look closely – wonderful trail building. Eventually, exhausted we crossed the Kern River and set up camp in the old growth ponderosa grove. The Kern River fortunately was a very braided stream - we easily crossed six moderate streams instead of 1 large river (sorry no pictures). Easy crossing though.
To be continued...
Thanks for the wonderful information over the past few years. I’ve been a lurker for a while, partly because I’ve taken this long to get out into the High Sierra. So here is the TR of my first trip there.
The plan was to hike 7 days and 6 nights in a large loop (starting 12 August 2019), every two days crossing a progressively higher mountain pass, 10000, 12000 and eventually the famous Forester Pass at 13166 feet. We'd see alpine scenery and acclimate for a final push up Forester. With huge elevation changes and 10 mile days we'd be focused on the journey, not leisure. The feel of the hike would be wilderness and remoteness for the first four nights (we saw 7 people including 1 ranger and 3 trail crew in four days), then join the PCT and JMT for a day and a half and out the following (we saw 36 people in one day). Looking down from near Sphinx Creek towards Roads End. The brutal switchbacks up the side of the cliff at the start of Avalanche Pass (Sphinx creek)
The first day was agonizing, hiking up thousands of feet on switchbacks, cut into the granite face of the mountain. The infamously brutal Avalanche Pass is literally stairs dynamited into the valley wall. We were soon exhausted, leg sore with our heavy backpacks (7 days of food), and suffering from the altitude (8500 feet, home is sea level). A number of other factors made it miserable and a little uncertain in our minds: a large deli sandwich lunch that weighed on our stomachs, the map being wrong and my altimeter reading 500 feet out (the Nat Geo map and Caltopo show that the second set of switchbacks on Avalanche pass are far from the stream, in reality the switchbacks end near the stream; I didn’t calibrate the altimeter). Desperately, there were no flat spots for 1000 feet elevation gain. We finally found the first flat spot on the map near the stream to put up our tent, exhausted! The first flat spot on the Sphinx Creek side of Avalanche pass. It is fairly obvious on the map, as you cross the creek at 8500 feet.
We are always careful about bears and minibears. But what harm of leaving a shirt out overnight? A minibear ate neat holes all over the shirt presumably trying to get salt. Looking up Roaring River canyon.
We hiked up to Avalanche Pass, then down to Roaring River Ranger Station, and on for a few miles. Again we couldn’t find a flat spot in the few miles during which we decided to stop, eventually sleeping on a large granite slab over the river. We spotted a pacific fisher the next morning – very rare! The only flat spot, but there was evidence of others camping there, also bear scat.
Hiking up Roaring River we approach the Whaleback, which we had to traverse to the left up to Colby Lake. Taken from Big Wet Meadow which was surprisingly moderate on mosquitoes (relative to nearby areas).
Hiking up to Colby Lake we looked back down Roaring River Valley, in the center is Palmer mountain, and the saddle to the right is Avalanche Pass.
I walked the day to Colby Lake in flip flops, as I was starting to develop some heel blisters, and there would be lots of water crossings. This worked out well, I didn't get any blisters the whole hike, but we had very sore feet and legs, but no major damage. At Colby Lake we arrived at 4PM, early by our standards, a whisky, a bit of laundry and an Alfredo Pasta, with bacon bits and chicken.
Colby Lake was the best campsite of the trip, waking in the morning to a still lake and reflections of the opposite granite ridge, or the peak. That night the moon rose full, and it was very disorienting to wake in the night to see a bright reflection on the lake. We watched Scorpio set with Venus(?). More Colby Lake reflections
The following day was the crux maneuver of the trip. Could we get over Colby Pass? If not, we'd have retrace our steps. We arrived to find a single guy walking down - he'd given up. He couldn't work out the line to take, and didn't walk across the snowfield "By myself I don't want to get hurt out here, so I'm going back." This we thought was very reasonable. Unfortunately, he then left before we could look at the pass. We thought a lot about him over the next few days as the route he took back didn't compare to the grandeur of the mountains we saw over the pass. We scouted it and found a route as follows, labelled in the picture below: A) a easy walk/scramble around the bottom snow field to a very large boulder. B) a 40?foot walk across the snow field at the bottom. We walked across it without crampons, because it was full of sun cups, meaning we could walk in depressions, not on slippery angled ice. And the angle of the ice was low - we'd have fallen on our bums, not slid if we fell. C) we then had to scramble up to the trail, this was not very exposed. D) we walked up the trail for a few switchbacks (not shown to scale, arrows approximate). E) Further up the trail was obscured by more snow, and we had to scramble up a cliff, the cliff wasn't too steep, but the loose boulders were scary. The path was visible above us. F) Soon we made it back to the path and hiked up to the top, 12000 feet. I thought a lot about whether to include this much detail, as Maverick says he doesn’t give out route information as it reduces the adventure. I like this general philosophy. But I also thought a lot about the single guy who turned around, he made the right decision for him, but with this information his trip would have included some more great mountains. Colby Pass North side from near the top. Colby Pass from the bottom of the North side, the snow field at the bottom is obscured.
Having spent the morning climbing the pass 8:45 to 11:00, we now had 4000 feet to drop in the afternoon to Junction Meadow on the Kern. This was very, very long and steep, the most difficult on the legs of the whole journey. But lovely, lovely scenery. The hike down was very difficult, 4 days of hiking weighing on our weary legs. I promised that we'd have to go down the last 800 feet to Junction Meadow (our camp), but we were soon faced with a narrow hill UP! The cliff was to be surmounted BEFORE going down 800 feet! See below. The path is etched into that gap in the mountain. Look closely – wonderful trail building. Eventually, exhausted we crossed the Kern River and set up camp in the old growth ponderosa grove. The Kern River fortunately was a very braided stream - we easily crossed six moderate streams instead of 1 large river (sorry no pictures). Easy crossing though.
To be continued...