I left San Jose in the evening after rush hour had subsided, enjoying a pleasant five
hour drive to Mineral King. Arriving around 1a, I did something crazy that I haven't done
in a long time - I went to sleep. If I'd been going to the Kaweahs I'd of course just
started hiking, but this was a nice change of pace, actually starting and ending an
outing in the daytime. I was awake, breakfasted and on my way by 6a. I had parked next
to a truck that had
marmot-proofed itself against attack, but neglected to make similar
provisions myself. My understanding is that the marmots are an early season problem, but
it probably doesn't matter - I doubt I'd spend the energy until I've been personally
affected by marmot shenanigans.
As I started up the Sawtooth Pass Trail, I came across 
a grouse on the side of
the trail that gave me "the eye" but didn't bother attacking. I didn't taunt him in
return since I know these pesky buggers aren't afraid to turn on humans with a low flyby.
There were several deer either 
napping or 
foraging on the hillsides along
the trail as well. I crossed 
Monarch Creek and continued up (running across
a second grouse) to the 
Crystal Lake junction. Rather than take either
fork, I headed cross-county straight up the talus slopes towards the NW Ridge of Mineral
Peak. This was a mistake in hindsight as the ridge was too fractured to make for a good
scramble and the southwest side I traversed was 
more tedious than fun. A better
option would have been to take the Cyrstal Lake Trail 
to the saddle on the
Southwest Ridge and then follow that ridge up.
Shortly after 8a I reached the junction where the NW and SW ridges merge into the
West Ridge.
Here the route grows 
more interesting with some actual rock scrambling
rather than acres of sliding talus. It took an hour to complete this ridge, bypassing
a first difficulty on the right before running up against the more
daunting face below the summit. This bigger difficulty I managed to get around
by finding 
a class 3-4 route up the face to the right, up an airy series of
steps along a crack leading to a break in the face and the easier slopes on the southeast
side. The summit was only a few minutes above this point. At the top was a beefy
ammo box but it held only a single 
sheet of paper left by a PCS group
of eight in 2010. There were plenty of visitors since then, filling most of the page,
the most recent only five days earlier.
The summit is centrally located in the Mineral King 
area, giving a
good view of most of the 
surrounding peaks. Before leaving, I scouted
a route to Peak 12,109ft, looking to
avoid cliffs on its north side and unnecessary elevation loss. I descended the class 2
East Ridge to a saddle, then dropped a bit more on the south side of the ridge to begin
an arcing traverse up and around Crystal Lake, moving through the cliff band above the
east side of the lake. From there I regained the main ridge and followed the class 2
North Ridge to the summit. In all I spent an hour and twenty minutes 
traveling
between
Mineral Peak and Peak 12,109ft. This summit is some 500ft higher than Mineral Peak and
is the highest summit on the crest between Sawtooth to the north and Florence to the
south. This summit had a similar 
ammo box, but the notes inside were much older.
There were four scroll-type strips of paper left by Barbara Lilley and party
in 1976, the pages sufficing for entries over the next 
24 years.
A book-type register was left 
in 2000 and to date had twelve pages filled over
the intervening twelve years. Sean O'Rourke was the last one 
to sign in almost
a year earlier when he was doing a tour of all the
summits surrounding Mineral King.
I next turned my attention to 
the southeast with Peak 12,100ft looming high in
the
distance. Most of the terrain up to this point was somewhat familiar even if I hadn't
climbed the summits because I had been in or around the same terrain. But this next
section heading east was new to me and the most enjoyable part of the day. The route did
not look daunting, and in fact most of it turned out to be a pleasant exercise across
granite slabs and talus, light forest and passing by beautiful, pristine lakes. There
was a delightfully 
babbling stream with 
shooting stars and other
wildflowers in relative abundance. The two and a half hour romp took me by
unnamed 
Lake 10,569ft and 
its outlet followed by
a high traverse to find 
the trail leading to
Little Claire Lake. From there 
I ascended the SW Ridge of
Peak 12,100ft, gaining more than 1,600ft in little over a mile of class 2. It was after
1:30p now, and I was reasonably tired, having earned 
a good rest.
I stayed at the summit for almost half an hour, soaking in the views. There is very fine
view of 
the Kaweahs and the 
Chagoopa Plateau to the north, stretching
across the deep, 
straight canyon cut by Soda Creek. Whitney and Langley were
clearly distinguishable to 
the east along the stretch of the Sierra Crest
visible across the Kern River chasm, with Olancha visible far to 
the southeast.
There was no register or cairn found at the summit
though I have no doubt it had been visited in the past. The likes of Smatko would not
have left such a summit untouched. Before starting down, I had my well-deserved
caffeine boost
to help me on the return. I would need some extra energy for the last climb up and
over Franklin Pass. The plan was pretty simple - descend the peak to the southeast and
pick up the trail near Forester Lake and follow it up over the pass and back to down to
Mineral King.
The descent of Peak 12,100ft turned out to be rather easy. The whole southeast side was
made of easy slopes through open forest, very few downed trees, little brush, and acres
of open, sandy descent. It took less than 30 minutes to find the trail north of Forester
Lake. I continued cross-country for another third of a mile passing the lake to the north
in order to shortcut the route and pick up the trail west of the lake. I found the trail
as expected shortly before the junction with the Rattlesnake Creek Trail heading down to
the Kern River. 
The sign indicated only 2.2 miles to the pass. Half a mile
later I passed 
another junction for the trail to Shotgun Pass. I expect I'll be
making another trip to use this trail to visit some other unnamed summits on either side
of Shotgun Pass. It was 3p when I 
started up the steeper slopes above treeline
towards Franklin Pass. I spotted 
two backpackers ahead of me 20 minutes later,
making their way steadily to the top. Using them as incentive, I kept at it and
passed them by about ten minutes later, arriving at 
the pass at 3:45p.
A broken stump
was all that was left of the wooden sign that once graced the pass. Four
persons were gathered to the north of the trail having a conversation. One of them was
a female trail runner who had come up to the pass from Mineral King for a workout. The
others were camped at Franklin Lakes on the west side of the pass and had come up for
a short hike after setting up camp. I made a quick detour to climb to the highest point
north of the pass, 
Peak 11,973ft. Sandwiched between 
Florence Peak and
Rainbow Mtn, it has
about 250ft of prominence but no register or anything else to give it more official
status as a peak. I dropped down class 2-3 slopes to the west to intersect the Franklin
Pass Trail on that side. I spotted the trail runner on her way down well ahead, but
her pace was not all that quick and I thought it might be a fun game to try and catch
up.
The trail down the west side of Franklin Pass makes a number of long switchbacks across
steep, sandy slopes on the way down to
Franklin Lakes. Where the trail jogged suddenly
right for another long traverse, I simply left the trail and bombed down the easy
slopes in the main drainage, dropping nearly 400ft before regaining the trail just above
Franklin Lakes. This put the trail runner a short distance behind me, but it was the
last I saw of her. I kept up a jog down the trail past 
the concrete dam that
holds back the largest of the lakes and through some 
lush meadows that line
Franklin Creek before
it descends more precipitously to the Kaweah River. At around the 9,600-foot level I
noted an unmarked trail junction that I paused to examine. The map showed the main trail
continuing to contour around the northwest side of Tulare Peak into Farewell Canyon
before descending to Mineral King. The other fork was not shown on the map, but appeared
to descend more directly to Mineral King. I decided to take this trail down and found it
worked out quite nicely. In fact it had evidence of past trail maintenance and
construction, making me guess that it was probably the main trail up to Franklin Pass
at some time in the past. It goes through some 
boggy areas
which may have been the
reason for abandoning its maintenance. Luckily in a dry year, the muddy sections
were not difficult to get across as I continued jogging down.
I met back up with the main trail around 5:20p, following it down past confluence with
Franklin Creek and into the 
lower reaches of Farewell Canyon. It's a
very 
runnable trail for the most part and quite scenic as it makes its way down
this very green valley. It was almost 6p by the time I reached
the Farewell Gap TH and another ten minutes along the road before I
returned to my van at the Sawtooth Pass TH. All done, it had made for
a 12hr outing, one of the longer outing I'd done in a while. I felt pretty good,
jogging much of the route down from Franklin Pass which led me to believe I had enough
energy for a longer outing. I wasn't yet sure I was ready for the long hike to the
Kaweahs, but my confidence was starting to return...
Continued...