High Sierra Topix

It is hard to leave the Sierra after a short backpacking trip, so my friend and I decided to take our ultra lightened packs (~16 lbs.) up Sonora Peak for one more night. The climb up 11459' Sonora Peak from the eponymous pass is almost exactly 2000 feet. There is still snowy ground for at least half of the route up. One can climb this easy mountain any number of ways from the pass, and we chose a very scenic route that took us past deep caves and even through a tunnel in the ridge on our way up. Steep snow slopes at one point made us wish we would have packed at least one ice axe, and we had to use care in our boot work to keep it safe. On the way back from the summit we found a higher path around that steep snow area, which made the whole descent pretty easy.

The weather held for us, and the views from the top were very fine. We ran into Chipmunks, and two Marmots, and one amazing Snowshoe Hare, who ran down past us. For birdlife the highlights were the Yellow-rumped Warblers, Mountain Bluebirds, a Redtail Hawk, and then the two giant Golden Eagles, who both soared ever so slowly, and then twice chose to tuck their wings tight to their bodies, and plummet down together at tremendous speed!

We are very glad we decided to stay in the Sierra awhile longer. Frank and I have learned to anticipate the feeling of loss upon returning from our Sierra trips, and we both easily agreed to reload our packs, and head back into the sky.







After the snowfields on the pass, we found ourselves in a lush Sagebrush community, with quite a few flowers bursting from the still wet soil. As Frank said, "These little flowers don't waste any time, do they."

The Pasque flowers were up again!



And the Phlox...



And these unknown flowers, which will soon be everywhere.



The clouds to the east were spectacular--they seemed to be exploding open!


We hiked right under these volcanic pinnacles and found this great tunnel...

We made the summit in a bit of a windstorm. It was fine as long as we stayed under the eastern slope, but of course on the summit we were right back in it. It must be a common phenomena because other folks had built curved wind shelters on the peak, with the windbreak wall to the west.




We scurried back down, and luckily found our tunnel, where we had hoped to spend the night.








It was a great spot to camp except that the same wind was howling right through the tunnel. It threatened to sail away whole sleeping bags, let alone smaller items, so we had to pile rocks on everything, and we cooked in a hole on the east side of the opening to get out of the wind. Luckily it died down somewhat in the night.


Here we are heading down the next morning. I tried to talk Frank into heading over to the Eastside, and up Robinson Creek to check out the Incredible Hulk, but to no avail.

It is a very scenic route up this volcanic mountain, and it would be dead easy in the summer.

Always a good decision to sneak in more Sierra time!

The silhouette in the last photo of the tunnel reminds me of Sunny Jim Cave down in La Jolla!