Two years ago I did my first backpack in Ventana Wilderness, a quick overnighter to Pine Valley. The weather was horrendous, so I vowed to return when the weather was…
There are plenty of options for getting to the summit of Split Mountain, from the walk-up to the technical. Split could be considered the easiest 14k peak in California when looking…
This was the day with the biggest number of unknowns. The beginning of the day started off without concern, following the trail back to the John Muir Trail (JMT) and…
Arrow Peak from Camp Words of the Day: &$%ing mosquitoes!Despite the mosquitoes this was a great day. Arrow Peak is a wonderful climb from Bench Lake and the views from…
This year’s long summer Sierra trip was a return to an area I sped through when I hiked the middle stretch of the John Muir Trail in 2006. At that time we came over Pinchot Pass, camped at Lake Marjorie, and then hike through Upper Basin and over Mather Pass the next day. I felt a bit rushed through Upper Basin, mainly because we were trying to outrun a horde of mosquitoes. But it still remained one of my favorite scenic stretches of the JMT and I was looking forward to a day where I could go back and explore.
That day came this summer. Sooz and I planned a nine day outing that would take us over Taboose Pass and down the old John Muir Trail to Cartridge Pass, eventually leading into Lake Basin where we would explore, fish, climb some peaks, and enjoy some Sierra solitude. Depending on the time we spent there we also tried to wedge in a couple of days to do Arrow Peak from Bench Lake and Split Mountain from Upper Basin. With this year’s late snow melt we went in with a flexible itinerary and the ability to change it around depending on how fast we moved and conditions we encountered. It turns out that this was a good plan – snow kept us from getting into Lake Basin and we were able to change plans mid-week.
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Last weekend we visited Thousand Lakes Wilderness, nestled in the volcanic terrain between Lassen National Park and Burney Falls. While we're familiar with much of the local area the wilderness…
We headed up to Emigrant Wilderness for an overnighter last weekend. Conditions are still rapidly changing with snow in the high country causing both difficult travel and dangerous creek crossings.…
Once a year Henry Coe State Park opens the gate at Bell's Station on Highway 152 for a weekend, allowing access to the more remote areas of the backcountry. With…
The sun was up and I poked my face out of my tent, still wrapped up in my warm sleeping bag like a burrito. My water bottle was frozen. Hm, that was a first for this trip.
Our original plan was to have an easy day down to Honeymoon or Upper Pine Lake where we would have a relaxing last night on the trail before exiting and driving home on Sunday. Instead, we decided to cover the final 10 miles (2 cross-country, 8 on trail) and almost 5000 feet of descent in one day. After a successful trip with every summit on the list bagged, I certainly didn’t feel like we were cheating or bailing on our plans by exiting a day earlier than planned. Anyways, I only had one packet of Starbucks Via coffee left and we’d polished off the end of my bourbon the night before. The real world has coffee and beer. I was ready for the real world.
After packing up we took off cross-country towards French Lake. It was a really pretty little area with nice meadows and some campsites tucked away along a lightly flowing creek. At French Lake we dropped our packs for a quick snack and some photos. There are some relaxing looking beaches along the shore of this lake, but they didn’t look too tempting on this cold and windy morning. It wasn’t warming up like the previous days. There was an autumn-like chill in the air.