High Sierra Topix

Who was the lovely "Virginia" for whom all these things are named?  Or did the colorful Eastern Sierra landscape between Lundy and Glines Canyons remind someone of the State of Virginia?*   Is it possible that the Eastern State of Virginia contains such wild red mountains, rocky canyons, and azure lakes?  Then we must go see Virginia, but till then, I'll return again and again to the Virginia country of the Eastern Sierra.

*Who has that book on the history of Sierra place names, balzacom?  

Virginia Canyon and Virginia Peak from Virginia Pass. 


This trip began at the urging of our longtime friend and backpacking partner Carleton, who had just returned from an abandoned trip that began in the rest of the Virginia land-- up Virginia Creek, to reach Virginia Lakes.  They had the luck to see a big old momma Black Bear ambling along the high ridge above the lakes, but one partner took ill, so they had to cut their trip short.  

Here's that lovely Bear, whose name happens to be "Virginia."


Carleton missed seeing Summit Lake, and completing the scenic circle from Virginia to Green Creek.  He hit us up, proposing a trip back there, and of course we were keen to go.  My idea was to extend the circle to include Virginia Canyon, and possibly do some climbing, however, that put us into YNP, and out of dog-friendly territory.  [I now know that some will miss seeing our furry friends, and others will be pleased not to have dogs mar the trip, but let's just leave it at that.] 
Carleton is up on the fall color websites, and learned that Sagehen Summit, southeast from Mono Lake, was nearing its peak colors before most other areas, so we went there first.


Sagehen Summit.


The striking peaks of Convict Creek show in the distance.  


As you begin your hike up the Green Creek valley, you pass by an impressive Beaver dam. Check out the size of the Aspen trees they chew down!

These are over a foot in diameter!



The route we settled on began at Green Creek TH, passed by beautiful Green Lake; on over V. Pass; down to V. Canyon, to camp right under V. Peak.  Then we would circle back around to Green Creek via Summit Lake Pass, and down the East Fork, past Hoover Lakes and the giant East Lake.  We had 7 days, and the total trail miles to complete this circle are very low (about 15 miles), so we thought about covering more ground, either by heading across the valley to visit McCabe Lakes, or just by day hiking along the way.  We chose the latter, saving McCabe Lakes for another day.  Our photos, and the captions can tell the rest of the stories:


The route up to Virginia Pass travels through rugged Glines Canyon.  We spent our first night high up in this canyon, and the sunrise was superb!


Glines Canyon again.  [I don't know how someone got away with calling it "Glines" instead of "Virginia," I imagine that there was a big fight about it.]

Machinery from an old mine. ... I assume it was called the "Virginia Mine." 


And this must be the famed "Virginia Cabin." Okay, I'll stop now. 


Lizzie seems pretty happy with me here, but this is at the very start of the trip.


Just below V. Pass, from the east.

Return Lake.  The wind was hellacious for the first 3 days.


Fascinating seed and berry Bear scat.  I realigned the pieces to make this impressive cylinder.  We decided it was a big-ass Bear.


Morning view from our camp above Return Lake. These are the two pillars attached to V. Peak.


Carleton took great photos of Return Lake.  That's the east slope of Stanton Peak, which was our next goal.  This made sense because the crazy wind was coming from the NW.


View of V. Peak from the saddle between the Soldier Lake basin and Return Lake.




Soldier Lake. 


We saw 5 or 6 Pikas on this trip.


Summit of Stanton, which is a nice scramble.


Horse Creek Pass above my head.


The upper canyon of Spiller Creek.


C's pano. from the top of Stanton Pk. (click image to enlarge):  Left to right: Unnamed. Pk ~11,920,'  Whorl Peak, Matterhorn, Twin Pks., and Virginia Pk., all the way to the Lyell group, in the far distance.

View SE, with our next destination-- Summit Lake and Pass.  The two passes of this short trip both lie at the foot of broad Camiaca Peak (Red circles).  V.Pass, to the left, is ~10,500', and Summit Lake Pass is ~10,200.'


Return Lake again, with nice fall colors.  All three of us love the subtle color tones of fall.


My climb of V. Peak is documented here:    viewtopic.php?f=14&t=22649       
The blue circle shows the approximate area of easy class 3. The red line is the class 3-4 route I chose, and the green line is the standard east face route, that Bob Burd calls class 3. The dotted yellow line shows where Frank and I went years ago.  


There is a lot of solid rock here and there...


  ... and a bit of the chossy nightmare stuff too.


The summit views rewarded me for my efforts.  


View SSW over Stanton Peak




North face of V. Pk.




A late blooming Gentian.


Back at the lake, thinking I'll stick to fishing adventures for a while.

C. gazing off toward Summit Lake Pass.


We traversed directly across to the pass. Above Carleton are the peaks of Shepherd Crest.


Summit lake in the afternoon light,


And again at dawn.



The early morning view of V. Peak from above Summit Lake.



We followed this deer trail to Onion Lake, which is 1 mile south of Summit Lake.



The usual pose of our bird-loving friend Carleton. On this trip we located about 30 bird species, including 5 raptors: both Eagles, a Peregrine Falcon, a Cooper's Hawk, and many Redtails. The highlight for C. was the Lewis' Woodpecker.


Ptarmigan.


Onion Lake is a great color!


Across the canyon, where we first noticed the intriguing Onion Lake. Onion Lake is seen to the right of us. We made the high circle day trip shown here in blue.


On that route, circling back around, with a view of Hoover Lakes.

On the summit of Camiaca Peak, with a cool view NW.


View SW down V. Canyon.


Below Camiaca is a broad ridge that you can follow due east.


Upper Glines Canyon.


Back down at camp, with this giant, illegal fire ring.


Restored!


We saw a lot of Chippies!



And sadly, the only Coyote we saw was this dead one.  It was still in its first year.



East Lake is big.






The fish were nice, but most were egg-laden females. Carleton felt bad, and wondered if we should have released them? Or is it sometimes good to have fewer fish, to increase the overall health of the population? Please advise, Thanks.

Back down in Green Creek, the Aspen leaves had come along nicely.



Look michaelzim, we packed along our own John Muir look-alike.


And another tree lover.




We three partners notched another fantastic fall trip together.  This short circle over Virginia Pass, into Virginia Canyon, up Virginia Peak, ... and on around back to Green Creek, was a real joy!  We rambled all around, up and down, often off trail. We fished with success in 5 lakes, and a Bald Eagle even joined us at one.  We had 5 blessed days of solitude, including several in one of Yosemite's backcountry gems. And at the end of the trip, all the fall leaves waved to us a golden farewell.                                                                                                                                       
Good Luck Out There!

Thanks for the report, another great area!

Perfect timing (and weather) to get those great fall colors. Congrats on a great trip, and thanks for the awesome pictures.

Farquhar wrote the canonical place names book BTW. Then Peter Browning picked up the torch and maintained it, even branching off with a separate book for Yosemite place names. Your suspicion was correct. Virginia Creek was named first in the 1870’s by miners who were from the state of Virginia. Other nearby features followed suit as geographers started doing their thing…

Aha! Now I see where you were during the "wind period" at end of September, though further north up there it may have been even stronger than in Sabrina zone.

Looks like a great trip, and yet more fantastic "geology ascendant" terrain like in your McGee TR. Sheesh, I hope to see that stuff in due course with or without those gorgeous fall colours. The rocks don't do too bad a job of competing.
I will pass on the peak ventures though. Just looking at the pics from the top made my stomach quirl. But breathtaking!
That 'fly on the wall' photo would have had me unable to look as per watching you dangle over waterfall cliffs in the Pig Chute. Then there was Libby Pass of course.

Ha, ha...Yeah not a bad John Muir look-alike but your version is out of the running on account of: actually having a proper backpack, sleeping pad, boots, 3 x the gear load, and youth (really). I was being conservative when I said my apparition looked to be 80.

Question - What was the air traffic scene like there v. your comment on it regarding Emigrant? You know why I'm asking ...PM reply is fine.

It is too long to wait until 2023 spring/summer so hopefully you are going to do some crazy snow trip with TR in winter to fill the gap, as this TR here may be one of the last for this season. Sigh!

Thanks! Best ~ Michael

Gorgeous colors and a spectacular fall adventure. I have never been to that area and have been enticed once too often. I need to go next year!