BD Spot headlamp: sucks

A headlamp should be bright, long-lasting, comfortable, and easy to operate with gloves. Black Diamond’s Spot headlamp could have been a nice piece of gear: it is small enough to be comfortable, and has “flood” and “spotlight” modes in three different intensities (plus “annoying useless blinker mode”). The obvious controls would be levers or switches for “off/spot/flood” and “low/medium/high/blink.”

Sadly, the folks at Black Diamond blew it: instead of something reasonable, the Spot has a single button (small and rubberized, so it’s almost impossible to use with gloves) that tries to do everything. Push it hard, and it will toggle between off/spot/off/flood. Push it “less hard” (again, hopeless in gloves), and it will cycle through brightness settings. A hard press often starts out at the brightest setting, but sometimes will start out where you left off the last time you had it on. You usually find yourself trying “less-hard” presses until you get to “useless blinker,” then proceeding from there to reach the desired setting. The angle adjustment is a hinge at the bottom, meaning that it presses annoyingly against your forehead when running, and can even slip to a lower angle.

My tiny Petzl e-Lite, while not bright enough for running or cross-country travel, at least has sensible controls, in the form of a little lever that sticks out from the light body and cycles through its many modes. I have not tried brighter Petzl lamps, but they have sensible center pivots, and may even have sane controls. How did the Spot ever make it through product testing? Spend an extra $10-$20 on something useful.

CamelBak Blowfish: rules

It was expensive, but this pack has survived five seasons of vicious use well beyond its design. While it is intended to carry summer stuff plus three liters of water, I have used it to carry gear for long summer days (3,000+ calories plus basics), moderate winter ones (crampons, an ice axe, and snowshoes), and névé/ice solos (two tools plus crampons). In its currently modded state, my Blowfish has two tool loops, but until recently I attached an axe to the reflective thingamajig at the bottom and the thin loop at the top with accessory cord.

It is not without flaws: it distributes weight badly when expanded (it should get wider, not deeper); the water bladder punctures easily (duct tape fixed that) and is hard to re-insert when the pack is full; it lacks front pockets for easily-accessible items; and it doesn’t run particularly well, since the waist strap isn’t substantial enough to hold it in place.

Still, the thing has taken an amazing amount of abuse, with only the outermost zipper and the bottom thingamajig giving out.

Note: For my ice tool mods, I used a #0 grommet kit and some thin accessory cord to add two tool loops to the bottom black material (2 grommets each), and two tool attachments to the top (1 grommet each). I also attach a small camera case to one shoulder strap above the chest strap, and will probably add something to the other to carry food.

$10-$15 sunglasses: rule

If you’re paying more than $15 for your sunglasses, you’re a sucker. I have used cheap K-Mart and gas station sunglasses for the past two summers, and have never suffered snow-blindness.

DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer: rules

National Forest campsite fees are approaching $20 in many places — roughly what you would pay at a KOA, but with no amenities. For that same $20 you can buy a state’s Gazetteer at most gas stations, with detailed road maps leading you to secluded, free camping. Better yet, they are serviceable topos, far cheaper than the relevant 15′ or 7.5′ USGS quads for spread-out states like Colorado and Washington. They are also great map porn, perfect for sitting down in the evening to peruse a state’s unexplored regions. Don’t waste $5 on lousy road maps, or $20 for a picnic table and fire ring.

In particular, the California Gazetteer even includes abandoned Forest Service trails like the Milestone Basin and Marie Lakes spurs, which are missing from some other maps, and indicates areas of forest and talus.

Trails Illustrated maps 205 and 206: rule

For about $25, these two maps cover most of the interesting parts of the Sierra, albeit with a small gap between Bishop and Mammoth. They list many relevant features, have 100′ contours, and are far cheaper than a stack of USGS quads.

There are two other peaks along the way, Morris and Jenkins, but I ignored them on the way out, figuring that I would climb what I wanted on the return. From the Owens saddle, a series of closely-spaced ducks leads up the ridge to the summit, staying mostly on or just to the right of the crest. This climb is longer than it looks. Based on the summit register, the peak is very popular, but I met no one else attempting it.

After a summit nap, I followed a well-established trail to the southeast, then left it to return to the ridge and saddle. From there, I hiked and ran the trail to the cutoff I had noticed earlier, which apparently led to Jenkins. The route is steep, but a line of ducks leads around oak-brush, cliffs, and other such annoyances, making Jenkins a quick, fun side-trip. In addition to the plaque along the trail, there is another on the summit. I was pleased to find that the register left by those who placed the plaque was still there.

Returning to the trail, I easily jogged most of the gradual descent to the trailhead, reinforcing my belief that this is an awesome route for trail-runners. For those living nearby (Miguel?), Owens’ east ridge (from where the white granite begins) looks like a long class 3-4 scramble for the late season.

Finally, it’s BLM land, the closest thing to anarchy this side of Somalia! You can shoot a man while driving an ATV blind-drunk on moonshine, then roast quail and marshmallows over the body, as long as you remember to build a fire ring, smother the ashes afterward, and pack out your trash. Well, not really — it’s still more-or-less part of the United States, and there are some nice BLM tracts out there which I would like to see stay that way — but at least everything is free.

Chimney Peak

This a super-easy bushwhack either from the southwest, from the PCT, or the northeast, from a road that apparently used to be part of a scenic jeep loop (Chimney Basin Road on some maps), but is now blocked by a “POSTED No Trespassing” compound (apparently of the scary, off-the-grid, we-shoot-first kind). Still, it’s a short climb from the gate, and you can pick up an old road that takes you partway up. There’s even a picnic table along the road, suggesting that it was graded by BLM many years ago.

Chimney sees few summits, and for several years was climbed only once annually by the Chimney Peak BLM superintendent and his dog. From an old film canister in a bush next to the main register, I learned that once again Smatko had been there first.

Sawtooth Peak

This is a moderate bushwhack from the PCT if done right. Perhaps two miles in, the trail crosses a ravine at the point where it flows over a large, flat rock; there may be a cairn left of the trail just after the ravine, near a game/use trail. This ravine is near the apex of a large bowl north of the trail. Follow the ravine up the valley and through a cliff band, finding occasional ducks, then make your way to the northeast however is easiest; the peak is the eastern highpoint of the ridge.

If you get off-route, you can look forward to lots of oakbrush, and maybe even small cliffs of rounded, rotten granite. So don’t do that.

There is a nice view of Owens Peak to the south, and Olancha and the high Sierra to the north and northeast, including Langley, Whitney, and possibly the Kaweahs and the Mineral King peaks.

Lamont Peak

Unlike Chimney and Sawtooth, bushwhacks up unremarkable blobs, Lamont has both a trail to near the top, and a distinctive shape. The trail climbs from a saddle along the road (5400′) to the summit with no nonsense switchbacks and little elevation loss. The rocky summit looks out on a line of steep granite pillars leading north, a distinctive feature visible from much of the area. At least, the “Lamont” I climbed has these things. Though it had SPS register books and many of the regulars had signed them, a forested point somewhere west on the ridge may be higher, and may be the official Lamont. This one was much nicer, though.

Staying north of the ridge (south lies only oakbrush and misery), one soon picks up an abandoned but still useful spur of the PCT, convenient in linking Lamont with Spanish Needle and possibly Sawtooth.

Spanish Needle

My road atlas — the only map I have for this area — does not include Spanish Needle. However, from knowing its elevation and seeing register entries on Lamont and Sawtooth saying that it was possible to link it with either peak, I suspected it was one of three relatively sharp peaks to the east, on the ridge north of Owen. As it turns out, the south peak is “Polly’s Needle,” the middle Spanish Needle, and the north apparently unnamed, though it had an old-looking, totally blank BLM register.

I climbed the unnamed one first, then eyed the traverse. It looked too tough, but I checked it out anyways. It quickly turned 5th class, so I retreated, downclimbed, and found some ducks. The proper route for Spanish Needle does a bunch of annoying side-hilling to reach a saddle, then some contorted 3rd class to reach the summit. The crux for many people is apparently crossing a large, angled slab on the northeast side, reached by a series of flakes and a cut or dynamited step (!). One normally approaches from the PCT north of the peak, where it touches the ridge. I returned to this saddle, jogged to the Lamont cutoff, and made it back to the car much more quickly than on the way out.

Jordan's north face

Due in part to a miscalculation on my part, I got a shamefully late 4:50 AM start, which still incurred nearly 1h30 of morning headlamp time so late in the season and so far west in the time zone. This allowed me to grind out the sand and switchbacks to the Avalanche Pass turnoff in the dark, listening to “This American Life” rather than counting the miles.

From this fork, the trail follows Bubbs “Creek” (a river even now), slowly gaining elevation until it reaches Junction Meadow around 8000′. At Junction Meadow, I turned off to head for Lake Reflection, meeting two campers starting their day. I saw the ford, looked for a dry crossing downstream, and met the two campers again as I realized the big log I saw only went partway across. The creek splits above the ford, and I was able to get across dry with five or so easy to moderately difficult crossings and some bushwhacking.

The trail above the ford is well-maintained and -used, and I had no trouble following it as it switchbacked up one side of the creek, crossed on a well-built bridge (horses can’t ford steeper streams, I guess), and continued up the other to East Lake. Though there were recent tracks and horse dung, I didn’t see any campers.

Above the lake, the trail mostly disappears, but I managed to stay on track with a simple game of “follow the manure.” There were piles of it everywhere leading half-way up to Reflection Lake. It’s outrageous that packers and mule-tourists are still allowed to pollute so much of the Sierra this way. I accept that “tradition” should allow mules in some parts of some parks, like the Grand Canyon, but the damage caused by pack animals should be limited to as few places as possible, and should never go beyond well-maintained trails. As far as I can tell, you can use your mules to trash almost any part of the Sierra you like (except the Whitney Zone, of course, since forcing people but not mules to carry wag bags would be a bit too obviously hypocritical).

Lake Reflection, apparently above the manure line, would be a great place to camp. At only 10,000 feet, there are plenty of trees both around and above it. There also enough avalanches to send some of those trees into the lake, creating an impressive (though not Snowmass-scale) logjam and plenty of submerged logs. I followed a fairly well-defined trail around the south side, then took off sluggishly uphill to the southeast, following occasional ducks toward Milly’s Foot Pass. Stopping at a large tarn for water, I took out my map to orient myself. While Genevra towers above the head of the valley, Jordan is hidden by Genevra’s west ridge and its own subpeaks. I was able to pick out Jordan’s north face, though, and it didn’t look particularly 3rd class.

Still, I headed up into a bowl to the southwest, then gained Jordan’s north ridge, a more apt description of the route. Most of the ridge is class 2, and although shaded by the peak, did not hold any snow from the early-season storms. The ridge eventually merges into the face, where patches of snow started to appear and the climbing became class 3. Though it was near noon, the sun was too low to shine on the face, and cold hands added to fatigue made the climb less than joyous. As I neared the top of the seemingly-interminable face, route-finding became more important. Near the top, I found two seemingly 4th-class parallel cracks that proved harder than I expected.

I unhappily retraced my steps, only to find that rounding the corner to the east brought both sun and easy climbing to the ridge. Better still, the Booty Gods showered their bounty upon me, in the form of a nearly brand-new ice axe, just my size and better than the one I have. It seemed to have been there through at least one storm, and possibly over the winter, making it fair game. Rounding a few towers to the left, I soon reached Jordan’s summit block, a massive piece of granite perhaps 20 feet high.

Secor calls it 4th class via either a step-across or a crack. I didn’t see the crack, but the step-across was obvious. It has good holds on the lower block, with smaller nubs on the higher. However, it is narrow enough that you can plant your foot on the summit before committing to the move, and not really exposed — a fall would be painful rather than fatal. Reversing the move is a bit more dynamic, but you can just dive for the big holds on the lower block.

From the summit, the Great Western Divide and Kaweahs were clearly visible to the southwest; I contemplated the strangeness of looking west at peaks I had recently reached from the east side. Ericsson and its crags looked interesting, though they require a long grind up Shepherd Pass, and I have already climbed most of the surrounding peaks. Whitney’s north face was still holding quite a bit of snow, so it will probably be somewhere between annoying and dangerous until next summer.

While one could return down Jordan’s north face, it is probably both faster and easier to descend Milly’s Foot Pass via Genevra, which is kind of in the way. Taking a loose chute down Jordan, I stayed relatively high, scrambling and swimming my way to Genevra in just under an hour. Being both easier and closer to well-used trails than Jordan, it seems to see quite a bit of traffic, especially from people on trail crews.

Milly’s Foot Pass, the low point of the ridge east of Genevra, is supposedly 3rd class, and it certainly was the way I did it, with plenty of loose junk on top to make me think. I was looking forward to adding it to my list of “cross-country passes more difficult than Hands-and-Knees” when, looking back, I saw a hidden cleft with an easy dirt chute to the ridge. D’oh!

Finally picking up the trail again at Reflection Lake, I settled in to grind out the 15.5 miles back to Road’s End. The couple I saw in the morning near Bubbs Creek was still there, and asked where I was camped. As if…

I jogged some of the easier trail sections to cut down on headlamp time, but didn’t really push it. Heading up in the morning, I had laughed at what I thought was the most useless note imaginable:

How is this helpful?

Why, hello!

As punishment for my late start, I suffered 1h20 of evening headlamp time, reaching the car at 8:20, and drove out of the park to find a place to sleep undisturbed.

Notes

I was hoping to get in one more big and one smaller Sierra outing, but Jordan and Genevra gave new life to a stomach bug I thought I had overcome before, and the weather turned bad before I fully recovered. Blech.

Reading Bob’s trip report, I realized that for some reason he went up Milly’s Foot Pass, over both peaks, and dropped down the west side of Jordan before circling back around to Lake Reflection. I’m not sure why he did it that way, but my way seems considerably faster, both because it’s shorter, and because the Jordan-Genevra traverse is probably less painful in my direction.

Finally, there’s wireless at Cedar Grove, though it was too unreliable to be useful to me.

Black Kaweah falling below the horizon

I got a leisurely 3:50 AM start; while this increased the likelihood of evening headlamp time, it also meant that I was able to stow the headlamp at Spring Lake, climbing Hands-and-Knees Pass in the pre-dawn. While it is possible to follow bits of trail up Glacier Pass during the day, you will lose the trail at night. Even having passed this way the day before, I screwed up a bit, but since I understood where I had to go, I was able to reach the pass cross-country in about 1h40, the same time as by daylight, suffering no more than some loose talus-slogging.

As before, I had to make my way around the snowfield via the moat. I somehow had trouble picking up the trail on the other side, only finding it at the end of the first bench. On the far side of Spring Lake I sat down for a snack, and put away my headlamp. Hands-and-Knees was as easy as last time, though I nearly cliffed out trying to go straight down the west side of the Little Five Lakes valley. I eventually picked up the Black Rock Pass trail on the other side, and reached the trail junction at 7:15.

The rolling, then dropping, trail into the Big Arroyo was mostly runnable, and I was able to find dry stream crossings without wasting much time. I passed two backpackers while jumping the second piece of the stream, then hiked on to the cabin at the High Sierra Trail junction.

The 4000 foot climb to the summit began with a blind slog through the woods, with no landmarks to tell me whether I was heading up the right valley. I was fortunately more-or-less on-target, and as the trees thinned, I was greeted by Black Kaweah rising above the high plateau and the ridge separating Black and Red Kaweahs. It’s hard to describe with words and pictures just how intimidating it looks on this approach, with its many jagged fins and turrets.

I had come up on the south side of the valley, and continued a rising traverse on the slabs there, avoiding the nasty moraine as long as possible. Along the way, I stopped for water at a rushing brook that somehow came out of a small, lake-less cirque. From this side, the two chutes Secor mentions are not clear, but I made my way up the first chute that I found, and soon found both plentiful ducks and recent boot-tracks. Having spent more time recently on peaks that see only a few ascents per year, I was surprised to find this much traffic.

I easily found the cut-over into the left chute, and made my way up class 2 and easy class 3 rock covered with all manner of loose rocks. Even climbing carefully, I manage to let loose two significant rockslides, which would probably have killed or seriously injured anyone climbing below me. Sometimes it’s safest climbing alone. Mistakenly heading too far to the left (the summit’s on the right), I found some even looser terrain, a chute filled with “4 wheel drive” talus that had me scrabbling with hands and feet to make upward progress. Eventually realizing my error, I traversed back to the correct chute, which steepened to more sustained and difficult class 3 near the summit. While there were a few patches of snow and ice, they were easily avoided.

I reached the summit 6h50 out, faster than I had expected. I had planned, time permitting, to continue down Black Kaweah’s east ridge (class 4) to tag Pyramidal and Koonst Pinnacles, then possibly continue on to Red Kaweah. Time clearly did permit, but my enthusiasm waned as I viewed the route. The east ridge looked class 4, but probably over an hour of nerve-wracking climbing on sloping slabs covered with loose debris, possibly complicated by the snow hanging around on its north side. The pinnacles looked fun, but Red Kaweah looked like a long slog. I decided to make a short day of it, retracing my steps down the standard route.

I veered slightly north on the return, catching the HST farther north, then jogging to the Black Rock Pass junction. Here began one of the features of a Kaweah dayhike, its 3000 feet of climbing on the return. I still had energy to jog the flats below Little Five Lakes, but was noticeably slower on the climbs. The climb up the short, loose slope to Hands-and-Knees Pass was particularly unpleasant.

Climbing Glacier Pass, I was surprised to find quite a few fresh footprints in the dirt, and deep steps kicked in the snowfield below the pass. Topping out, I spied three hikers further down the pass. Mostly ignoring the trail, I caught them just above where the trail improves near the stream, and they recognized me from my stream acrobatics in the morning. When I introduced myself, the man recognized my name from the Sierra Challenge. I seem to have gained some notoriety among a select few. They were impressed by my speed in catching them; I was impressed that they had, with overnight packs, cleaned out the Kaweahs and several other peaks in that section of the Sierra.

Taking off again, I made it to the parking lot in 12h40, way faster than I had expected, for a surprisingly short day. I probably should have climbed more peaks, to get more mileage out of that heinous approach, but it felt good to be back before dark. I need to go back to the Kaweahs for a Red-to-Black traverse, and perhaps to climb Squaretop, but that will have to wait until at least next year. The days are getting short, and one can only climb Glacier Pass so many times in a week.

My experiments show that this was somewhat optimistic, and that the full traverse would take 16-17 hours: Hengst through White Chief adds 1 to 1.5 hours, and Empire less than an hour, to my 14h30 traverse of the remaining peaks. Then again, now that I know which 12 peaks count, I could save time by staying off the ridge in some places. However, I have no desire to go back for it, as all but 2-3 hours of the traverse is a cross-country trek through every imaginable form of talus and scree. Mineral King is beautiful, and the full traverse is a completely reasonable dayhike without any running, but it just isn’t that fun.

Day 1: Hengst, Eagle, White Chief

Hengst

I diligently started by headlamp at 5:00 AM, heading up the White Chief trail and taking the forks for Eagle Lake. For some reason, I had chosen to approach Hengst by gaining the upper part of Miners Ridge, then traversing along the main spine before retracing my steps. The bridge is out just after the Sawtooth Pass parking lot, so I acted confused for a bit, then waded through the construction site to get to my trail. I was pleased to find that the maintained trails in this area are easy to follow, even by pathetic headlamp (I hadn’t changed the battery in mine yet).

I gratuitously third-classed what looked like a nice little fin at the head of the ridge, only to find that it was an insignificant lump from the other side. Hengst looked close from my lump, but it turns out that the actual summit is on the far end of a long, semi-forested summit plateau. I eventually found an ammo box containing both a register and a copy of a newspaper article about the amateurs — a group of local recent high school grads — who did the 30-hour traverse.

Eagle is a rocky promontory sticking off the main, rounded ridge. I was pleased to see some familiar names in the register, including Ron Hudson (he’s been everywhere!).

White Chief is a pathetic peak when viewed from the ridge, being just another of the round bumps, some named, others not. I looked around a couple of high points, but didn’t find the ammo box. It was only 8:30, but the storm looked bad enough that I should head down. By 9:00 I was being hailed on by a thunderstorm, though it soon let up. I still cruised the trail back, passing some kids from a spelunking course at a nearby college.

Reaching the trailhead again, it seemed like the storm might hold off for awhile, so I decided to check out Glacier Pass by day. Getting to the Kaweahs requires crossing it at night (both ways, this time of year), and I didn’t want to try that on an unfamiliar and unmaintained trail. The trail started off clear for being unmaintained, but the storm wasn’t done, and quickly swept over the area with another wave of rain and hail. I got greedy, and got thoroughly soaked for it.

Day 2: Falcon through Needham (14h30)

Sawtooth from Needham

Despite a pretty good forecast, I thought I might give the weather another day to calm down by continuing the traverse from near where I left off. I got a more comfortable 6:00 AM start, requiring only 20-30 minutes’ headlamp time, and took the White Chief trail to its end, passing the mine and a deep cave along the way. I also passed two campsites, one with a man taking pictures of the frost on his tent, the other with loud frat-boys around a wood fire, which I think is illegal in this part of the park.

The frost had also accumulated on some of the talus, making for slow going to the low point on the ridge at the head of the canyon. The frost and slowness continued to the summit of Falcon Peak, where someone had drawn a falcon in the register. Falcon marked the beginning of direct sunlight — more warmth and less frost — but also of the hideously loose red talus that would plague me until near Florence.

Getting up Vandever is easy, but the other side is 1400 feet of loose talus to Farewell Gap. What looked like a person near the gap turned out to be several sacks filled with something that leaked blood, well-hidden from the trail. I chose not to examine them too closely.

I chose to go over point 11,783′, probably a mistake, then through the gap and across much side-hill talus to the low point of the ridge to Tulare. While it looks pretty impressive from the valley, the peak is little more than the end of a spur ridge. I noted some familiar names in the register — it’s an SPS peak — then moved on to Florence, finally reaching the end of the hateful red talus just before Florence’s white granite summit.

From there it was an easy sand descent to Franklin Pass, where I followed the trail to its first switchback, then took off up Langley-style sand and boulders to Rainbow Mountain. While the northwest side looks like a nice, fast boot ski, I found to my dismay that it cliffs out just before the bottom. While I found a 4th class way through, the better option would probably have been to either head over to the north ridge, or drop down the northeast side and walk around to Amphitheater Lake.

As I climbed the next peak on the ridge, fog flowed in from the west, flowing through the gaps in the ridge, and often covering the summits themselves. While the route-finding was relatively straightforward, this made it tough to choose a good line. I eventually reached the next highpoint, and found a register for “Pseudo-Rainbow,” so-called because it was evidently mislabeled on some map. It’s 60 feet higher than the actual Rainbow, so maybe they had a point.

Mineral Peak is another end-of-a-spur bump, though with a slightly more interesting climb to its summit. I tagged it, then returned to the main ridge, climbing yet more sand-and-boulders to reach Sawtooth. The rumored “spectacular view” was completely obscured by fog.

Needham looked like a painful slog, and I was feeling tired, but realizing there was little chance I would return this way, I decided to head over. While evidently Bob managed to find a class 3 traverse high on the ridge, I dropped well below to avoid the various pinnacles, then re-ascended yet more sand to the summit, a complex jumble of giant boulders. Looking west from the summit, I got some cool views of Sawtooth peeking out of the fog.

The return required re-climbing most of Sawtooth, then bumbling along its west face. With the sun setting and the fog as thick as ever, I decided not to head on to Empire, instead trying to find the trail down Sawtooth Pass. I ran across a maze of boot tracks in the sand, but no obvious trail, and eventually decided to just boot-ski to the valley and try to pick up the trail there. Fortunately I had traversed far enough to avoid any cliffs, and I emerged from the bottom of the fog just as dusk was falling, finally catching sight of the trail.

I put on my weak headlamp and followed the trail for awhile, then left it when it headed across Monarch Creek, rather than going straight down the valley. Had I looked at my map, I would have known that this is what it is supposed to do: it traverses to join the Crystal Lakes trail. However, I bumbled my way down the north side of the creek, catching bits of use trail here and there.

As things steepened and full darkness arrived, my increasing misery at being lost in the dark drove me to finally replace the batteries in my headlamp, and to look at my map. Wow! Being able to see a bit more, and knowing the trail situation, I realized my best bet was to pick up the Glacier Pass trail. Cutting straight toward the creek, I soon picked up some cairns, and eventually an identifiable trail. Relieved, I followed it to the main trail, then jogged it home.

Day 3: Empire

Empire from Glacier Pass

I got a nice late 8:00 AM start, taking the now-familiar cutoff to Glacier Pass. The trail is quite clear as it arcs below some jagged cliffs, then all but disappears as it passes through marshes and slabs, then reappearing intermittently above. Such is the Glacier Pass trail, varying between faint, obvious, and nonexistent as it makes its way to a very sensible low-point in the ridge. I understand why NPS stopped maintaining the Sawtooth Pass trail: it’s unmaintainable, being nothing but a trench in 1000′ of kitty litter. But large sections of Glacier Pass require very little maintenance. It’s even several hundred feet lower than Sawtooth! I added a few ducks, doubting they would help me at night.

Nearing the pass, I saw numerous use trails across the kitty litter leading over from Sawtooth Pass, which could be used in a number of ways. The dynamited and heavily-built trail on the north side of the pass unfortunately drops one directly into a permanent snowfield, which is far too slick and treacherous to be crossed except in the afternoon. Backtracking a bit, I 3rd-classed my way into the moat, then followed it west around the end of the snow.

I regained the surprisingly-intact trail below the talus fan, and followed it to Spring Lake, where a nice log bridge and a faint use trail led me to the base of Hands-and-Knees Pass. Secor describes this as a “class 3, difficult cross-country” pass, but he must have some personal problem with it. Maybe he got lost there in the dark (whence springs my aversion to Lamarck Col). Though it looks awful from across the way, it is in fact class 2 over mostly-stable dirt, rocks, and vegetation. It also climbs nearly 1000′ less than his recommended alternative, Black Rock Pass.

From the pass, I traversed downward to the ridge between Big and Little Five Lakes Basins. In retrospect, I found it behooves one to stay high. The rest of the route to Little Five Lakes and the trail looked easy, so I took a long break here, then returned to Glacier Pass.

Empire is but a 30-minute talus slog to the west, made least painful by staying close to the ridge. Glancing through the newly-placed register, I saw that one person had climbed it from the Empire mine. I like mining junk, and descending in that direction was a straight shot to the Timber Gap trail, so I finished my fish and took off that way, staying left of a ridge for a little while before breaking right and down toward the mine. The descent was not the pleasant boot-ski I had hoped for, but was still efficient.

The mine was kind of a disappointment. Growing up with Colorado mining junk, I expected fancy metal contraptions and big clapboard buildings. Instead, there were a few pieces of rusty, twisted metal and a hole. Oh, well. It was still a fast way to get back to the trailhead, taking just over an hour to lose almost 4,000 feet.

Big trees, small roads.

Trailhead facilities feel like the “locals” (i.e. rich families with summer homes) tolerate and accept backpackers, rather than that someone has built huge parking lots for tourists. The trailhead parking is a primitive, too-small, overcrowded dirt lot. There are a payphone and an outhouse, but not much more.

The trailhead climate looks like northern New Mexico or southern Colorado, with aspens and pine trees, interspersed with open areas of sagebrush and scrub. Of course, the pines are huge sequoias rather than ponderosas, firs, and spruces. Unlike the east side, Mineral King features wildlife, with fearless (though not entirely creepy) deer wandering the parking lot. You get used to seeing curious eyes in your headlamp.

So it’s a nice place, if a total misnomer; it should be named Animal and Vegetable King, at least when compared to the east side. Though there were not enough minerals to keep the mines open for long, the place is teeming with plants of all sizes, deer, and at least some bears, though I only saw their scat on the trails.

Bring more food.

The first problem is how to get to Rock Creek at the base of Joe Devel’s south slope. The options are either to go around via Cottonwood Pass or over one of the Army Passes. I chose the former on the way out, because it requires less elevation gain and may be slightly shorter. I was outraged to see an entire herd of cattle grazing below Cottonwood Pass. I know this is Forest Service “multiple abuse” land, but this was my first time seeing this form of water-contaminating abuse in the high Sierra.

Past the pass, it is a long but mostly pleasant hike along the west side of the crest, with good views of the Kaweahs and the peaks around Mineral King. The extended sections of deep sand for which the trail is known are mostly downhill. Moving at a fast walk, it was about 3 hours to where the route crosses Rock Creek at 10,500′ for the 3000 foot climb up Joe Devel.

This climb turned out to be the kind of thing that makes you wonder why you’re out there. At least 2000 feet of the climb is loose “kitty litter” sand, which feels slow even when it is not, while the rest is mostly big talus. This is topped off by a series of false summits. The views of the Kaweahs to the west and the rugged Corcoran ridge to the east are fine, but the climb had sapped much of my enthusiasm. This peak doesn’t see much traffic, and I can see why.

After some loose side-hilling on the northwest side of Joe Devel, the traverse from to Pickering is just more big talus. After reaching this much more popular summit, I decided to call it a day, dropping south to Lake Erin and from there to Rock Creek. Not wanting to take the long sand traverse in the uphill direction, I chose the extra elevation gain and distance of Army Pass. I had never been on this side of the pass, and was pleasantly surprised to find a moderate climb on mostly well-compacted sand. I thought of heading down New Army Pass, but the absurdity of climbing an extra couple hundred feet quickly drove me down Old Army Pass. This last in the season the pass is completely snow-free, but the walk out to the Cottonwood Lakes trailhead is as long as always.

If you do the traverse, do not start up Joe Devel. Most of the southwest slope, a slog going up would be a fast boot-ski on the way down. Also, expect a long day, particularly if you do tack on Guyot.

Afernoon on the GWD

I am invariably lazy when it comes to bagging remote Sierra peaks such as those on the Great Western Divide. This laziness takes one of two forms: either I avoid climbing them, or I try to hit as many as I can with one approach. Bob has mentioned a few times that I should try to bag Milestone, Midway, and Table — which share an approach — in a day. Leor Pantilat recently mentioned adding Thunder, and I found that Secor outlines a route for tagging all four. Together with a desire not to let my end-of-season fitness go to waste, I had enough motivation to switch to my second mode of laziness.

After a few hours’ sleep, my alarm went off for a 1 AM start — my earliest ever. I reset it for an hour later, but was soon reawakened by two especially loud early-morning hikers, leaving their car stereo blaring as they discussed what food to pack and did who-knows-what for twenty minutes. After pretending to sleep until they left, I decided I might as well get going, and started up the trail at 1:20.

I caught my tormentors below the Symmes Creek saddle, and found out that they were heading to Williamson. They were not too slow, and had no reason to start so early. I had not been up Shepherd Pass in a few years, and was surprised to actually enjoy myself on the consistent, moderate climb. I was pleasantly surprised to reach the pass in 3h10, having expected — for no good reason — to take around 3h30.

I took off jogging down the other side, then promptly squandered those 20 minutes trying to shortcut the trail to reach the Kern cutoff. It happened exactly as I feared: after eventually finding a way across Tyndall Creek, I hit the JMT not knowing whether the Kern cutoff was north or south of my position. I headed north for awhile, but suspected I should have headed south. After repeatedly studying my map and heading off cross-country, dawn made it possible for me to fix my position and, heading due south a few hundred yards, pick up the trail.

I reached the Kern a bit after 6:30, and took off again cross-country up Milestone Basin, picking up another sadly-abandoned spur trail. I had originally intended to climb Thunder first, but decided it might be smarter to go up the only tricky part of the route, the climb of Table’s southeast face. Refilling my water at a creek, I was surprised to see two campers starting their morning. I decided they probably came to this remote basin for solitude, and did not disturb them. The basin is surprisingly long, but mostly easy travel, either on the old trail or across slabs and grass.

Milestone Mountain looks completely inaccessible from the east, but fortunately there is a 3rd class ramp up the back, reached by a talus gully just north of the summit pinnacle. I reached the summit 7h25 out, and sat enjoying views of everything from the Kaweahs, to Whitney, to the Palisades far to the north. Since I expected each additional peak to take less than 2 hours, I thought I was in good shape for time.

Returning down Milestone’s east face, I traversed around the basin to a notch in Midway’s east ridge, then made my way up the talus of its northeast face. Heading directly up the southeast face is supposedly class 3-4, but it looked complicated, and would not have saved much elevation loss. I reached Midway’s summit 8h35 out, still on schedule for a reasonable day. Unlike Milestone and Table, Midway isn’t really a distinctive peak, but it’s just sitting there.

After admiring Thunder’s gnarly south ridge, I dropped down the north part of Midway’s northeast face, circled around a tarn, and started up toward Table. I (thought I) had failed to bring a picture of Secor’s route description, but I knew that I should head up the face close to the table part of Table, to avoid the ridge’s serrations. Since I knew the 3rd class route was hard to find even with the description, I hoped I could 4th-class something that worked.

The southeast face looks like fun, blocky 3rd class from below, but is in fact wretched, outward-sloping ledges covered with all kinds of loose dirt and rocks. I made my way up and left, eventually following some cracks and dihedrals to the ridge. Only a little way along, I ran into a gap requiring either a desperate leap to a large pedestal or a scary 5th class downclimb. Having signed up for neither, I examined the option of traversing around the west side, but nothing looked promising.

I retreated to the east face to look for alternatives, with a sinking feeling that my day might end here, with the face steepening as I headed north. Looking back, I saw a line of flakes and ledges leading up and left to a point farther north on the ridge. Not seeing anything better, I made my way up this class 3-4 line to the ridge. Happily, a bit of airy traversing got me to the summit plateau, where I found a duck apparently pointing to the correct route. Oh, well — whatever works.

I reached the huge summit cairn 11h30 out, almost an hour slower than I had hoped given my time to Midway. I admired the insanely serrated ridge to Thunder, and examined the north side of the west ridge, one of my possible descent routes. Secor calls it class 4 with an ice axe possibly required. I would normally try such a route, but all the north-facing couloirs had plenty of old snow (and an impressive ice line!), as well as lingering fresh snow.

Going down the south side of the west ridge and around its toe was the only option. I debated heading home — I was behind schedule, and could reach the car before dark — but it looked like only another 1500 feet of climbing to Thunder, and I couldn’t see myself repeating the approach anytime soon. I could still be back in under 20 hours.

This part of the day mostly sucked. The chutes down the ridge were all loose scree and talus. Following Secor, I started down a chute close to the plateau, then traversed a few chutes to the right when I could, and was rewarded by not cliffing out. I tried to traverse high around the ridge, but probably wasted time side-hilling and having to descend to avoid cliffs at the foot of the north side. The valley leading to MacLeod Pass on Thunder’s southwest side is a mess of hilly moraines filled with huge talus, so there’s no avoiding a protracted boulder hop; the best you can do is minimize the number of loose-sided valleys you cross. Fortunately, MacLeod Pass is not nearly as bad as Secor claims, with slabs leading up to a point high on the right side, and solid rock or stable talus most of the way up the gully. With a bit of angry music, I made the ridge in good time.

From the ridge, it is easy class 2-3 to Thunder’s interesting summit ridge/block. What looks like the summit is in fact the first of three pinnacles heading north to the true summit. A system of narrow class 3 ledges and a chockstone bridge lead along the right side of the ridge. They’re not hard to find, but quite exposed in places. The summit pinnacle offers two options: a long crack/dihedral to the left, and a delicate step-up plus a big mantle straight ahead. There was a cheater sling in the latter, which I did not use.

I reached the summit 13h45 out, again slightly slower than I had hoped. Only one other person had summited this year, and it looked like the peak sees only a handful of summits annually. One other person mentioned doing the link-up in 10 hours from the Kern-Milestone trail junction (I had taken 8.5), confirming my belief that this is a reasonable “normal” day from a camp on the Kern.

I found a class 3 way off the north side of the summit block and around to the east, then made my way down the long valley to the Kern trail, past much avalanche debris. At one point, the river was funneled off a waterfall into a narrow cleft, which didn’t look like a water-eroded valley; I’m not how it formed.

From the trail junction, I traversed cross-country rather than losing 500 feet by following it to the Kern-Milestone junction. While this saved me some climbing, I doubt it saved time or energy, since I wasn’t able to find a level traverse. While I suffered on the climbs going back to Tyndall Creek, I still had energy to jog the downhills and most of the flats. I was impressed at how good I felt 16 hours into the day.

Shortcutting to the Shepherd Pass trail was much easier on the way back in daylight. I continued jogging where I could on the endless, gradual climb to the pass, wanting to minimize my evening headlamp time. I ran the descent as fast as I could, but still had to put on my headlamp near Mahogany flat. Either my eyes were malfunctioning, or my headlamp wasn’t as bright as I thought it should be. I swapped in my spare batteries, only to find that they were nearly dead. Back on the old batteries, I continued much more slowly than I had hoped. I felt relatively good speed-walking up the dreaded sand hill, but couldn’t see the trail clearly enough to take the downhills at more than a slow trot.

With no moon, my vision was reduced to the next 10-20 feet of trail, and the switchbacks down to Symmes Creek were a featureless misery. I remembered that the descent has three segments: a long stretch of pine forest, a short patch of scrub, and a longer stretch of piñon. I tried to gauge my progress by the star-outlined ridge to the north, but it didn’t help. After what seemed like forever moving through the sameness, I reached the stream crossings, which broke the final hike to the trailhead into manageable segments. Other than sore knees, I felt surprisingly energetic and awake for the end of one of my two longest outings ever, 19h45 on the trail. I found a can of chili in the car, and spread it on bread for dinner before crawling in back for a good night’s sleep.