High Sierra Topix

It's always nice to get up to the mountains, even if only for a day. On 6/8 we did an up and back from the Bay Area to the Grouse Ridge area north of I-80. It was a good example of what is feasible for an up-and-back trip from the East Bay. We left home at about 6 am, arrived at the trailhead (Carr Lake) at 9 am. We returned to the car sometime around 6 pm and with one snafu (getting some drive-thru food) had an easy drive home getting back at about 945 pm or so. I think it's a good up-and-back if you spend more than half the time in the mountains (rather than spending more than half the time driving), as was the case on this trip. It was crisp and cool with a smidge of new snow on the ground from the cold front that passed through the day before, so there were no bugs. The only deficiency of the trip was the lack of fishing action. The four of us did an enormous amount of casting but managed to catch but a single 11-inch brookie. Once on foot everything was the Sierra as we know it, even though driving there we passed many indicators of the time, including at the trailhead: all of the campgrounds we passed were closed including the Carr Lake campground.

Thanks for posting! Nice to see that this area is pretty open already for hiking.
-Phil

I did the dumb young guy version of this trip: Leave the Bay Area @1:45 AM, hike from 7AM to 8:30PM, drive back to the Bay Area and get home at 1:15 AM. Just under 24 hours! It's a day trip!

Thanks for the post GB... Going to be heading in to that area this weekend.

Looks very pretty up there. Too bad about the fishing, I know lots of people say the "like the challenge" but it's frustrating when you make that many casts and it's just not happening. At least it is for me. Thanks for the report, I'm looking forward to getting out one of these days.

Thanks for the report and photos! Even with the slow fishing it must have been really nice to get out.

c9h13no3 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 10, 2020 8:25 am I did the dumb young guy version of this trip: Leave the Bay Area @1:45 AM, hike from 7AM to 8:30PM, drive back to the Bay Area and get home at 1:15 AM. Just under 24 hours! It's a day trip!

I once did the dumb young guy version of a similar trip to Yosemite: left the Bay Area at 3:00am, hiked from 7:00am-8:00pm, arrived home at about 12:30am. Have never attempted the longer 5+ hour drive each way to the east side, and now that my tolerance for long drives is much lower I don't know if I will ever bother trying that kind of driving to hiking ratio again.

windknot wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2020 7:39 pmI once did the dumb young guy version of a similar trip to Yosemite: left the Bay Area at 3:00am, hiked from 7:00am-8:00pm, arrived home at about 12:30am. Have never attempted the longer 5+ hour drive each way to the east side, and now that my tolerance for long drives is much lower I don't know if I will ever bother trying that kind of driving to hiking ratio again.

Yeah, I’m slowly getting over my elevation bias. The western Sierra, Trinity Alps have a lot of awesome features without the heinous drive to the East side. Plus I think sagebrush is ugly :-X

What a great example of a day trip. And I agree about the need for calibrating the drive-to-hiking ratio, and this one seems pretty good for the Bay Area.

c9h13no3 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2020 8:44 pmThe western Sierra, Trinity Alps have a lot of awesome features without the heinous drive to the East side.

Ah good point on the Trinity Alps. I keep forgetting that Canyon Creek TH is only a 4.5 hour drive away, since other trailheads in Northern CA that I lump into the same category are 5.5 hours away (East Boulder, Shackleford) and then we're getting into Bishop-area territory for drive times.

windknot wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2020 10:03 am

c9h13no3 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2020 8:44 pmThe western Sierra, Trinity Alps have a lot of awesome features without the heinous drive to the East side.

Ah good point on the Trinity Alps. I keep forgetting that Canyon Creek TH is only a 4.5 hour drive away, since other trailheads in Northern CA that I lump into the same category are 5.5 hours away (East Boulder, Shackleford) and then we're getting into Bishop-area territory for drive times.

Even closer to the Bay Area is the Trinity Divide area including the Castle Crags Wilderness which is just west of I-5. There are some nice glaciated pockets in there, including some interesting fishing lakes. There is even some room for some off trail hiking (have done that). I haven't been up there since 1992 though.