Most immersive 2-nighter? (anywhere between LA and SF, early August)

[Gazelle]

I vote packsaddle lake, it is beautiful, there are fish. I base camped there and hiked matthes peak, divide benchmark, and along ridge peaks to pavillion dome, then dropped down to trail and back it was a tough day that maybe too far? you could do matthes and divide benchmark over to lobe pass down to those lakes then around to packsaddle? maybe add lake 11236 on south side of lobe pass? Or go to northside peaks we did those and pilot knob on day 3?

[Gazelle]

Or maybe up to moonlight lake out of sabrina and do picture and Haeckel peak down to echo lake?

[Jim F]

sleepy dragon,

Since you "rock climb a good amount," I suggest you reconsider your option 3. It has you starting Day 2 from your campsite at Finger Lake. Middle Palisades Peak hovers just a mile away and is a California 14er.

Go to the top of the glacier, and then start ascending, being blessed with many lines to follow to the summit ridge. If a line of ascent has reached its expiration date, then likely you can transition to the next gully over. The terrain should remain a class 2-3 scramble. In advance, carefully study the enormous East Face of this peak. Lack of attention/study can result in one topping out on the summit ridge a challenging distance from the Summit.

From the Summit, your view of the Mighty Sierras will make the scramble very rewarding and you will have a great story to tell when you have dinner in Oakland on Day 3.

End day 2 back at camp at Finger Lake. On the morning of Day 3, hike out and have enjoyable dinner in Oakland.

Jim

[maxr22]

This is my attempt to balance the wants of low crowds, high elevation terrain, 395 trailhead, and 2 nights limitation. This short trip does have a significant crowd factor at the trailhead, but you will leave most of the crowd behind as you would go over Mono pass instead of staying in Little Lakes Valley.

Day 1: Rock Creek Trailhead to Pioneer Basin
The trailhead is probably the #1 trailhead on the east side sierra, but the vast majority of the crowd is not going over Mono pass like you. Leaving the crowd behind the pass. Since you are going on a Sunday, I think there is a good possibility you will have Pioneer Basin to yourself.

Day 2: Pioneer basin to 4th recess lake (or stay)
Start the day out early and bag any of these 3: Mount Hopkins, Robber Baron Peak (aka peak 12,404), or Mount Crocker. All of these have class 3 or under routes according to Secor Guidebook. After your climb float down to 4th recess lake for a change of scenery OR stay in pioneer basin.

Day 3: Back to the car.

[sleepydragon]

@papercup,

Thanks so much for the popularity vs. spectacularness index, this is exactly what we needed. We were excited about the easy peaks + beauty around Kearsarge (esp Bago and Gould) — good to know that'd be a great time, perhaps for later in the season one year.

Pine Creek entry is a superb suggestion! Sounds like that might hit everything we're looking for — it's stunning up there.

We're imagining doing day 1 to Royce Lakes, day 2 dayhike Royce/Merriam Peaks and move camp to Granite Park, day 3 out. Or possibly, more ambitiously: day 1 Granite Park, day 2 over Italy Pass and over to Vee Lake, day 3 over BeaRoyce Pass through Royce Lakes and out??
(I guess these don't keep us under 11k' the first night, but it's probably time for us to test a less-conservative acclimatization protocol)


@Gazelle,

Wow, all these suggestions sound epic. Your Matthes to Pavilion Dome day is impressive — we're definitely much, much slower than you so the Lobe Pass down is promising. Picture and Haeckel look like beautiful scrambles too. So many options to consider... Thanks so much!!

[sleepydragon]

@Jim F,

Hmmmm, very intriguing...
Middle Palisade has been on our wishlist for a while, but I suspect it may be a touch more altitude than we're able to handle on a day 2 (we're extremely bad acclimatizers).
Will be off studying the route though — would definitely be a rewarding one if we could pull it off. Thanks for the encouragement!!

Day 1: Rock Creek Trailhead to Pioneer Basin
The trailhead is probably the #1 trailhead on the east side sierra, but the vast majority of the crowd is not going over Mono pass like you. Leaving the crowd behind the pass. Since you are going on a Sunday, I think there is a good possibility you will have Pioneer Basin to yourself.

Day 2: Pioneer basin to 4th recess lake (or stay)
Start the day out early and bag any of these 3: Mount Hopkins, Robber Baron Peak (aka peak 12,404), or Mount Crocker. All of these have class 3 or under routes according to Secor Guidebook. After your climb float down to 4th recess lake for a change of scenery OR stay in pioneer basin.

Day 3: Back to the car.

Very interesting! We'd never considered Mono Pass because it seemed somewhat modest compared to the other eastside entries.

This itinerary looks pretty optimal for our goals — isolation, fun scrambles, plus moving camp makes the trip feel like a journey even though it's short. Plus the popular part through Little Lakes Valley is a beautiful place we've never been, so enjoyable the whole way.

Your (stellar) TR has me thinking of whether we could do a quick traverse of part of the Kuna Crest in these two nights too...

Thanks so much for the thoughtful advice!!

[Harlen]

sleepydragon,

As you can see, this sort of post is really popular. We all love to imagine spectacular trips. It's too damn bad that you have just the 3 abbreviated days.

I am so impressed with all of the great options folks here have pulled out of their hats. Re. Jim F's seconding your 3rd option to go up the South Fork of Big Pine Creek, I had a couple of ideas. First, a climbing-centric plan could be to base camp at Finger Lake, and then climb either Middle Pal. (pretty easy if you find one of the best routes), or Mt Sill! The latter peak would have you guys climbing over Scimitar Pass (or Elinore?), and then going down and around the SW ridge of Jepsom, then a couple miles up the easy boulder fields of SW Mt. Sill. That would be a pretty long and very high day-- Sill is 14,153.' However, you'd have the easier option of climbing Mt Jepsom, which is dead easy, and right above Scimitar Pass.
This will definitely challenge your acclimatizing. (Of course Middle Pal. is also over 14,000,' but far fewer miles.) Your second day could be to cross Contact Pass, which has one of our very favorite big mountain views, and it's especially brilliant in the morning light. So early AM to Contact Pass, and then you could drop packs and climb Temple Crag, which must have an amazing view too. Then down into the North Fork basin, where you could drop your packs again, and hike all around the place, and then make a circle back down to your car.

There are many variations to this trip, including just doing Contact Pass and Temple Crag on Day 2, and your second night could then be spent in the beautiful North Fork of BP Creek. Many of us old folk are enjoying these sort of basecamp, or shorter miles trips, and the long day hikes/climbs. You might want to sort out the details, ie., the rules and regs re. entering the NF of BP Creek on your South Fork permit? Or don't look into it, so you can more honestly plead ignorance. We are already looking forward to hearing about what you guys end up doing. Cheers, Ian.

[sbennett3705]

sleepydragon (and whoever),

Intriguing area! If I wanted to make it a longer loop, what would you say to this itin?

1. North Lake -> Tomahawk Lk or Mesa Lk
2. Hum Basin explore
3. Hum Basin -> Puppet Pass -> Elba Lk or nearby
4. Elba Lk -> Hutchinson Mdw -> somewhere along Piute Creek or Lower Golden Trout Lk
5. Lower Golden Trout Lk -> Out

[sleepydragon]

As you can see, this sort of post is really popular. We all love to imagine spectacular trips. It's too damn bad that you have just the 3 abbreviated days.

I love it so much. This gives us so many places to dream of while we’re stuck down low all year...

Your idea to hit Middle Pal/Sill + Contact Pass to loop back through North Fork sounds novel, and marvelous. (It seems like a South Fork Big Pine permit should cover a North Fork exit, and that only the Whitney exit is special, but I will check with a ranger, no excuses.)

Knowing us, I think we’d need an extra day to make this itinerary work (or some extra preacclimatization time). Maybe we can figure out how to substitute heat for altitude acclimatization. Or, there’s always next year...

—

Thank you SO much for the help everyone! There are enough dream itineraries here for us to explore for years. Plus we're going to need to improve quite a bit to tackle some of them, so that's a fun challenge

Right now we’re thinking we’ll use this trip on papercup’s suggestion of a Pine Creek entry, trying for a quick jump into Bear Lakes Basin and over to Vee Lake + up Royce/Merriam on the way back. (The HST meetup reports on Bear from last summer looked so spectacular that we can't pass up a chance to try to get out there.) And if our legs can't carry us that far, Royce/Granite Park/Chalfant look like the perfect place to just be out.

We’ll be back with as many trip reports on all these suggestions as we can handle!

[papercup]

Everyone has different preferences, but as someone who doesn't mind bigger days with a lot of time spent moving, I think that Pine Creek option sounds like a lot of fun. I did a similar loop back in 2017 -- we spent five days on it, but that was purely to give us some layover time; the actual moving from place to place could have easily been done in three. We exited via Granite Bear Pass, not BeaRoyce. It's a beautiful area.

One photo from my favorite little corner of Bear Lakes Basin: