Sherman Pass and finally
past the Black Rock Ranger Station to the Smith Mtn
trailhead.
Who would have guessed the roads of the Southern Sierra would
be open in December? There had been very little precipitation
to date and the roads were all open, pending an incoming storm
system. I had planned to head to Southern California, but at
Matthew's suggestion we agreed to meet for some climbs in the
Domeland Wilderness instead. I didn't have a lot of expectations
for the weekend as I imagined freezing temperatures and chilled
bones - not one of my favorite forms of suffering. We did get
cold temperatures, but things were quite pleasant during the
day and it turned out to be a fine weekend.
It was Thursday morning and I wasn't expecting Matthew until sometime early Friday morning. My plan was to climb the peaks around Smith Mtn and then if I had time, a climb of Sirretta Peak in the late afternoon. Arriving at the TH at 10a, the plan was somewhat simple, if ambitious - three hours to climb Smith, Jackass, and Granite Knob, two hours to drive to Big Meadow, three hours to climb Sirretta. It would get me to the top of Sirretta for sunset, then back to the van by 6p. But plans rarely work out so smoothly.
I parked the van where the road runs south of Granite Knob.
I could have driven further east, but the road condition looked
to grow worse and I figured the van had done enough to get me
as far as it did. It was pretty easy to find my way to Smith
as I followed the road east to a saddle, then south up a broad
ridge towards the summit. I found a few
ducks along the way,
but they weren't terribly helpful for any practical purpose.
I bypassed one false summit on the
east side, then approached the summit rocks also from the
east. The summit is composed of a line of rocky outcroppings,
and the highpoint is far from obvious. Not finding a way up from
the 
east side,
I climbed through a notch between two of the outcrops
and wandered over to the west side. There I found a
class 3 route
up to the top of one outcrop - not the highest as it turned out. I
could see that the highpoint was the outcropping
furthest north,
so I made my way over surprisingly fun rock along the ridgeline
to the highpoint and the 
summit register. I signed the summit
register (dating back to 1963)
and took some pictures of the outstanding views around
the Domelands and Golden Trout wildernesses. I was happy to find
the weather so cooperative - temperatures now in the 50s, and the
air cool, crisp, and very clear. Leaving the summit, I found the
exit off the north side (the obvious route up for most visitors)
quite easy, wondering how I managed to miss it on the way up.
In retracing my route back down to the saddle, I climbed the false
summit I had bypassed on the way up for no better reason than the
rocks looked fun. This would be the mode for the afternoon and
the primary reason I got so far behind schedule - there's just so
much fun scrambling around that I hated to leave any of it
unexplored. I next headed for
Jackass Peak, which also has several
summits, I came to find. In classic style I misjudged their heights and
climbed the lower north summit first. I really didn't mind, because
the 
north side of the south summit looks very cool from the north
summit, and it inspired me to climb it by that class 4 face. As an
additional treat I found an 
old piton on the crux of the north side,
though exactly why it was there was hard to determine. Atop the
higher south summit, I found a register in a
rusty tin. In addition
to lots of fine crags, the area is rife with summit registers, too.
Heading west for Granite Knob, I was attracted by several lesser
rocky knobs in between the two named summits and simply had to
explore them. On the lower of the two I found a Sierra Club
register
placed by Gordon MacLeod in 1982. Mine was only the tenth entry in
the intervening 24 years. Interestingly, Ron Hudson's name was one
of the ten. I then scrambled over to the higher summit some distance
away, Peak 9021ft. 
A register, placed in 1987 by Andy Smatko
and party, 
declared (in classic Smatko style)
an "apparent first ascent." This was chastened in
the next entry by a local ranger who declared, "Quit it!" The elevation
recorded was that for the lower peak. They named the peak "Andrea Peak"
for the female member of the party, but I don't think that name stuck.
I descended by way of the 
NW Ridge, then continued west to Granite
Knob. As earlier, I climbed the lower summits first before finding my
way to the highpoint near the far north of the summit rocks. Again I
didn't mind because the 
class 3 scrambling
was both abundant and highly
enjoyable. I found the fifth 
register
of the day, one dating back to
1972 and placed by Carl Heller. That one was a gem.
By the time I 
returned
to the car it was 2:30p, an hour and a half
behind the original plan. I no longer would be able to make Sirretta
for sunset, but maybe I could find the peak before I needed a headlamp?
It took nearly two hours to drive the distance to Big Meadow. Along the
way, not long after starting out, I hit a rock on the side of the road
which violently jarred the car and made some awful noises. Getting out
to inspect the damage, I found the rock had struck the running board
on the passenger side, busting it up a bit and knocking it out of
kilter. Hmm. I remembered I had some duct tape in the car, and after
a hasty repair job to secure the wiring from further damage, I went
on my way (it took me half a day when I got back to remove the running
board and pound it back into shape).
I didn't take long to hit the trail when I got to the TH around 4:30p, as I wanted to get close to the summit before darkness set in (in my rush I forgot my camera). I managed to make most of the route up the steep trail before I pulled out the headlamp, but hadn't made it to the cross-country part yet. Fortunately I was able to spot the tell-tale duck alongside the trail and started following this up the slope, heading west. There's no use trail at this point and the ducks were of marginal help. Eventually I lost them altogether and just kept going up until I topped out at the ridge.
By the time I was at the ridge it was very dark, the headlamp absolutely essential. There would be no moon for many hours. I turned at the ridge and headed for what I thought was the highpoint. I noted the lights of the Owens Valley to my left and thought it quite beautiful in the cold night air. The ridgeline did not lead me to an obvious summit, but rather a gradual incline that seemed to continue ever upward. After about ten minutes it struck me - that wasn't the Owens Valley I was looking at, but rather the Central Valley. The former would be blocked by the Sierra Crest well to the east, keeping any lights from that direction out of my line of sight. The seriousness of the situation struck me quite quickly - this was not a place to get disoriented and lost. If I was unable to find my way back to the trailhead I would be in serious trouble since I had nothing to allow me to spend a night huddled in 20-something degree weather. I had a fleece, warm gloves, and a balaclava, but that was about it. Getting lost was not an option. As I've found before, it's hard to get your brain to reorient once you've gotten out of kilter by 180 degrees. But I forced myself to accept that I was heading in the wrong direction and turned around. I figured I'd give the summit ten or fifteen minutes to make itself known before I abandoned it for a return before I got myself further disoriented. I was more than a bit nervous at this point.
It would have been an odd peak to fail at since it's one of the easiest on
the SPS list. But as fate would have it, the summit rocks eventually made
themselves known to me through the darkness and I scampered up them to the
summit and the register. A wooden crate was fastened to the summit rocks with
a register inside. The wind had picked up and it was getting frightfully cold,
so I made an entry just as fast as possible with my gloves off. I was
shivering by now and my writing looked like a first grader's. Oh well. I beat
a hasty retreat, and as I made my way back down the east slope, I could no
longer feel the sting of the wind and once again I warmed up. After what
seemed a longer time than it should have (and had me a bit worried), I came
upon the trail and suddenly I was safe and worry-free. Without further
issue, I made it back to
the trailhead just after 7p. It had been a good day.
I reparked the van back out on the main road on the west end of Big Meadow where Matthew was sure to spot it. I had sushi from the cooler for dinner, all the while warming myself and the inside of the van with the engine's heater. My van's mileage suffered a good deal as I let the engine idle for a number of hours that weekend to keep myself cozy inside. It was one of the best uses for petroleum that I had ever discovered.
Continued...