Sunday marked the end of our beer adventure and the start of our Southern Utah adventure. The Federal Government still had parks closed, but the state of Utah had opened…
The Sweetwater Mountains are an overlooked range thanks to their more showy neighbor, the Sierra Nevada. Occupying a piece of largely undeveloped land north of Bridgeport and bordered by highways…
Proving once again that there is no such thing as too much time in the mountains, I headed back up for another weekend of peak bagging around the northeast end of Yosemite. On Saturday, we climbed Warren Peak, a lovely pile of rocks on the eastern crest of the Sierra with a tremendous overlook of Mono Lake. On Sunday, we hiked to Johnson Peak, a unimpressive pile of rocks from a distance but a fun slabby climb along some beautiful benches up close.
Here are some photos from these two great climbs. If you are interested in the detailed route information for these peaks, I tried to capture it in the captions of the photos in the albums I linked to below. Neither peak is particularly challenging with route finding or terrain, and they would make fun entry level off-trail peaks in the Yosemite area.
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Poor Excelsior Mountain, always in the shadow (literally) of its bigger and more popular neighbor, Mt Conness. The next highest point to the north, Excelsior doesn't have any dramatic cliffs…
Everyone talks about Half Dome. You can't have a conversation about Yosemite without someone asking, "Have you done Half Dome?" But people should really ask, "Have you done Clouds Rest?"…
One of the most spectacular views in Yosemite, on the way to Ragged Peak
My second backpacking trip ever in Yosemite was to Young Lakes, a hike that I still remember as very difficult and strenuous. Of course, I was in no kind of hiking shape at the time and my pack weighed about 50 lbs, so when I realized I would be on the same trail again with a stronger body and a daypack I was interested to see if the trail was as difficult as I remembered it to be.
The answer is no, of course not. In fact, it is actually one of the easier hikes in Yosemite! It’s amazing how much experience skews your view of what constitutes ‘easy’. That’s why I never trust guide books that give ratings on a Easy-Difficult scale. But I digress. Why did I return to this trail? To hike a peak, naturally!
Back in…2000? 2001? …when I hiked in to Young Lakes I was impressed by the toothy peak that the trail carefully circled at a distance. It looked intimidating and completely unclimbable to my inexperienced eyes. Recently it popped up on my radar again and I was surprised to read that this peak, Ragged Peak, was a quite doable class 3 summit. So what else to do but pack up and go?
Within every community you'll find people who like to nitpick things. A nitpicky thing among peak bagging enthusiasts is the true identity of the highest peak in Nevada. Some call…
About twenty miles east of Lee Vining and Yosemite National Park there is a small high desert mountain range known as the Granite Mountain Wilderness. There are hundreds – thousands – of these small desert ranges across the western states, and frequently they are driven by at highways speeds, from a distance appearing brown and grey and desolate and boring. But during my years of exploring the backcountry of California I’ve learned that these ranges are full of life, history, and exciting adventures.
April is a somewhat unpredictable time of year in terms of weather in Yosemite, so when I made campground reservations a few months ago I had no idea if I'd…