Tioga Peak: 11,526 ft

Tioga Peak Summit Register
Tioga Peak Summit Register

Tioga Peak is a really nice little peak found near Tioga Pass just east of the Yosemite boundary. I climbed it on Friday, August 20th on my way out to Bishop to meet my friend Sooz for a nine-day backpacking trip. I had the whole day to make the 6-ish hour drive, so I decided to break it up with a short hike to stretch my legs. Another motivating factor was to work on my acclimation – I had just returned from the Mineral King trip three days before so I knew that a quick hike at over 11,000 feet wouldn’t be too difficult and would help with my acclimation when starting off on the long trip the next day.

Tioga Peak is an excellent and easy short climb. Much like Gaylor Peak, the effort to payoff ratio is great – a couple of hours and very simple cross-country travel will get you to a summit with incredible views. The hike I did was approximately three miles round trip with about 2000 feet of gain – not quite as easy as Gaylor but definitely easy by Sierra standards.

To access the peak, follow 120 east through Yosemite. Once past the Tioga Pass gate, look for the turnoff to Saddlebag Lake (just past Tioga Pass Resort). Turn left on this rough dirt road and follow it about 1.5 miles to the parking for the Gardisky Lake trailhead. Park here, then find the trail across the road. Follow this steep dusty trail up the hillside until you reach the meadows before the lake (about 0.5 miles into the hike). From here you leave the trail and head cross-country to the summit of Tioga Peak.

Use trail on NW ridge
Use trail on NW ridge

The peak will be obvious, the prominent point to the southeast. The route is simple – just hike on up the slope to the summit. If you follow the northwestern ridge (see the descent part of my track below) you will find a nice use trail. If you decide to continue on the trail to the lake first and then head up the slope, you’ll have to navigate through some brushy overgrowth (my ascent path). Although any approach is easy, the easiest way to attain the summit is to follow the northwestern ridge.

From the summit, the views into Northern Yosemite, Mount Conness, the lakes along Tioga Pass Road (Tioga and Ellery), and across to Mt Dana are amazing. There is even a peek at Mono Lake. It’s a great perspective on the layout of this part of the Sierra. Another great thing about this hike is the lack of people. I saw a few people hanging out at Gardisky Lake, but only ran into one person on my descent – and it ended up being a friend, neither of us knew the other would be on the peak that day!

Links

End of Summer Reflections

Seven Gables
Seven Gables

As I sit here overwhelmed with photos, GPS tracks, and notes, I can’t help but reflect on the time I’ve spent in the mountains over the past six weeks. I’m feeling incredibly lucky to have the means, vacation time, health, and willing spouse that lets me enjoy this hobby. More than a hobby – a lifestyle. Being in the mountains makes me happy, clears my head, and challenges me both physically and mentally. Some people need therapy or organized religion. I just need my Sierra.

Some of the trips I did were easy, others hard. I climbed a handful of peaks and really have the bug now – all I can think about is that next peak. I did more extended cross-country travel than I have in the past and it really opened my eyes. When you must constantly make decisions about your next step, you study and embed yourself in your surroundings to a depth not experienced when following a trail. I found that I enjoy this type of experience more than on-trail hiking and I expect to do much more of this type of backpacking in the future.

In the upcoming weeks I’ll be sharing a lot of photos and trip reports. I am still blown away by the beauty I got to experience and the summits I got to stand on; as I sit here flipping through my photos a perma-grin is plastered on my face. I really look forward to re-living it all as I post about all the adventures here.

A quick wrap-up/summary of my summer Sierra adventures that will soon be posted:

  • Mineral King Loop (already posted)
  • Muir Lake (Cottonwood Basin) (already posted)
  • Gaylor Peak (already posted)
  • 9 Day cross-country loop out of Pine Creek including:
    • Granite Park
    • Italy Pass
    • Mt Julius Caesar
    • Dancing Bear Pass
    • Bear Lakes Basin
    • Seven Gables
    • Feather Pass
    • Royce Peak
    • Steelhead Lake
    • Four Gables
    • Pine Creek Pass
  • Dayhike of Tioga Peak
  • Dayhike of Mount Conness
  • Dayhike through the loop of lakes out of the North Fork of Big Pine Creek
  • 20 Lakes Basin fishing and dayhiking
  • An afternoon in Bodie with my camera

Now that the season has wrapped up I have some time to gather my thoughts and photos and I hope to be posting more consistently. Once I am caught up I’ll be finishing up a redesign of the site which I hope to launch by the end of the year. I look forward to sharing it all with you!

Mineral King Loop: Timber Gap, Five Lakes Basin, Sawtooth Pass

Columbine Lake Sunset
Columbine Lake Sunset

The Sierra summer backpacking season is coming to a close which means I am home again and can focus on the thousands of photos taken, hundreds of miles hiked and GPS-tracked, and long list of peaks summited. I’ll start with a report on a classic loop out of Mineral King featuring Timber Gap, Black Rock Pass, Little and Big Five Lakes, Lost Canyon, and Sawtooth Pass. Although it is under 30 miles long, this loop is typically done in four days or so since the elevation gain is so extreme (nearly 10k of vertical up and down). We did this hike in mid-August. Bear with me – this is a long report shoved into one blog post.

To jump to all the pictures from this trip and skip the report, click here.

Introduction

No matter which way you do this loop you will have a lot of climbing, but I strongly recommend going counter-clockwise as we did. Otherwise, you’ll be climbing Sawtooth Pass on Day 1 and this is possibly the sloggiest slog that ever slogged on the west side of the Sierra. It is much easier to come down (i.e. ‘scree ski’) the steep and sandy slope (“wheeeeeeee!!!”)

I chose the four day trip to span a weekend – starting on Friday and exiting on Monday – to try and avoid as much weekend travel traffic as possible. Also, I wanted to be a day into the backcountry before the weekend crowds hit. The truth is this really wasn’t that important. Most people going on trips out of Mineral King are out for more than a weekend so the permits were still all taken. We saw plenty of people throughout the trip, but not as many as the ranger led us to believe (“oh, you’re spending the last night a Columbine Lake? You know there is no room to camp there? And there are also a lot of other people who will be there that night.” She lied. More on this later.)

The road into Mineral King is, to put it lightly, a nightmare. From the turnoff in Three Rivers it is 25 miles to the end of the road. This 25 miles takes approximately an hour and a half to drive and if you or anyone in your vehicle is prone to motion-sickness you will suffer. This is why you won’t run into many weekenders back in Mineral King – I know I wouldn’t put up with driving this road for anything shorter than a four day trip.

Within a few miles of the end of the road is Silver City Resort, a small collection of cabins, a shop, and a restaurant. This is one of my favorite little small cafes in the Sierra. The pies are absolutely amazing. I particularly like the Fruit of the Forest – I believe it has apples, wild strawberries, rhubarb, and blackberries (?). Whatever it is, it is almost worth the drive just to get a piece. Don’t miss stopping here for a great lunch before or after your hike (or both)!

Pie. PIE PIE PIE!
Pie. PIE PIE PIE!

Okay, on with the trip report.

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Summit and other videos!

August is prime Sierra season so I’ve spent more time in the mountains than on my computer lately (yay!). And I’m turning around and heading back out to do a few peaks over Labor Day weekend. In other words, it’s gonna be a long wait for more trip reports and photos. BUT, I did take some fun videos on our recent outings and wanted to share them here. One is a video panorama of Columbine Lake (over Sawtooth Pass out of Mineral King), and the others are from the longer trip I just got back from where we bagged several peaks and visited Bear Lakes Basin. I have a panorama from the summit of Mt Julius Caesar and another from the summit of Seven Gables. Enjoy!

Columbine Lake at Sunset


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