In 2004 I climbed one of my first Sierra summits, Chocolate Peak. It sits among the lakes of Bishop Creek, a small bump compared to the surrounding ranges. From Chocolate's…
Having kicked off my two week trip by being chased off of a peak by storms the previous day, I was looking forward to the long term forecast of clear and warm…
I recently returned from a fantastic two week peak bagging trip to the Sierra. While I try to sort through the massive amounts of content I created on that trip…
Two weekends ago we took Thor on his second camping trip. We headed out, as usual, to the Eastern Sierra to camp, fish, hike, and bag peaks. Our first night…
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…
Last weekend we did a quick trip to the Eastern Sierra to do some leaf peeping. Reports were coming in that the colors were peaking early, so we thought we’d check it out.
What we found was a weird year for fall colors. It seems that everything is either still bright green or already browning, without much in between. We found scattered groves of bright colors and got some nice photos, but then the storm came in.
The forecast on Saturday morning was a 20% chance of precip with snow at higher elevations, but not enough to stick. By the time we were on the east side the chance had upped to 85% and snow was falling. The forecast for Bishop was dry, however, so we planned on camping around there. Unfortunately that 0% didn’t hold and we were rained on pretty good for a few hours on Saturday night. Meanwhile, snow was falling at higher elevations.
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After missing my week in the Sierra last year due to injury, I couldn’t wait to get on the trail this year! The plan was to hike in over Kearsarge Pass and head south along the John Muir Trail, then off-trail to explore Wright Lakes Basin and the 14ers of the Shepherd Pass region (Tyndall and Williamson).
We drove out on Friday night and met up with Pavla at Whoa Nellie. Then we headed south to a decent campsite about a mile off of 395 that would get us some sleep above 7k to help with acclimation. In the morning we headed south to Bishop to fuel up at Jack’s with a big breakfast, then picked up our permit after the White Mountain Ranger District office opened at 8 am.
A couple more stops delayed us a bit, most important was Pavla’s search for packets of spam singles. They weren’t at her normal spot but the Bishop K-Mart delivered! David also picked up a pair of socks at Wilsons. Finally we were on our way to the trailhead at Onion Valley.
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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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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…