The hard days were over and we took our time packing up in the morning. As soon as the sun rose enough to hit out campsite, however, we started moving…
On one of my earliest backpacking trips I had a view of the Sphinx rock formation. When I got home, I eagerly Googled it and discovered trip reports about the off-trail…
On day 6 we continued our cross-country travel over Cinder Col, through Brewer Basin, and over Sphinx Pass. It was probably both the most challenging and most enjoyable day of the trip. It…
After our long day on Mt Brewer we decided to take a partial rest day on Day 4. Well, we didn't decide that right away. We followed the fading use trail…
Our Circle of Solitude Variation was essentially a big loop around Mt Brewer, so I knew I had to include a climb of that peak somewhere along our route. There are…
Although our loop includes the word "Solitude", it did not start off that way. The Eastern Sierra trailhead at Onion Valley is a popular one and it's difficult to mentally…
The Circle of Solitude in Kings Canyon National Park was first written about in Mike White's guidebook to Kings Canyon. He describes a loop around the Kings-Kern and Great Western Divides…
Two weekends ago I got out on my fist backpack of 2014. Crazy! Our original plan was a simple trip from South Lake to Dusy Basin on Friday, where we…
For the final part of this trip report, I’m mostly revisiting terrain we crossed our first and second days. But the views are so great that it’s totally worth it! Unfortunately, our idea to climb Mt Williamson didn’t work out as planned. Feeling a bit spooked about the route after chatting with some other climbers and learning that just getting to the base of the peak was 9 hours round trip, we started considering other options.
The next morning, the intended day of our climb, we woke to gusting winds that nearly blew me off my feet, and waiting it out wasn’t working. The wind was picking up and we were well past the window of time where we should have left for Williamson.
So instead we decided to pack up and make it a long day on the trail, working our way back towards Forester Pass and hopefully making it to Kearsarge Lakes for the night. We estimated it to be about an 18 mile day with about 4000 ft of gain, including a 1500 ft climb to cap thins off right at the end. It wasn’t going to be an easy day. Considering we were already getting a late start due to our attempts to wait out the wind, I wasn’t completely confident we’d make it to Kearsarge Lakes that night. But we hoped to in order to meet up with some friends we thought might be staying there that night.
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