Blaney Meadow Trail that goes around the lake, you can't help but
notice these summits high above the San Joaquin River to 
the south.
I had been to the area on a number of occasions
while chasing SPS peaks, each time thinking, "I need to go up there." Today I
had my chance, I was not disappointed. It was one of the finer outings I've had
this year, enjoyable in almost all respects.
Having napped for almost three hours in the afternoon, I had dinner with my family and even watched some TV with them until bedtime around 9p. I then kissed my wife goodbye, telling her to expect me for dinnertime the next day. On the way out of town I stopped at the Starbucks for caffeine, then it was five hours of driving with a few quick stops in Los Banos and Madera for food and gas. The only traffic of note was the small line of cars making their way to the Table Mtn Casino in the Sierra foothills around 11:30p ahead of me. It was sad in a way to see the parking lot filled with so many vehicles this late on a Wednesday night. On another level, it was good to see the Native Americans finally getting their revenge.
It was 2:30a before I finished the long, final hour of driving over the bumpy, single lane road into Florence Lake. I pulled up and parked next to one of the bear boxes at the trailhead, put the unfinished portion of my Mountain Dew in it, shouldered my pack and started off in the dark. Thousands of stars were brightly visible on the moonless night, Orion just rising over the eastern skyline. I had more than three hours of darkness before the new day would dawn though I wasn't sure I had that many hours of trail to cover. My plan was to hike to Thompson Pass southwest of Mt. Shinn, then follow the high crest around to Mt. Shinn and then Ward Mtn. It wouldn't be the quickest way to reach the summits, but it should minimize the amount of cross-country in the dark that might be required.
It took about 40 minutes to reach the junction with the Thompson Lake Trail on
the west side of Florence Lake. A dilapidated
wooden sign marks the spot, the
first indication that this is not a popular route. Unlike the heavily used and
maintained Blaney Lakes Trail I had been following, the Thompson Lake trail sees
little traffic and is no longer maintained.
Ducks along the route help to keep
one on the tread that is difficult to follow at night. It didn't help that my
headlamp batteries were weak and my visibility into the darkness not very good.
Almost from the start I found myself wandering off the trail constantly,
sometimes several times within the same minute. I would look around, back track,
wander about some, and usually find my way back to it. It was evident that at
this rate I was not going to have to worry about it being dark when I reached
Thompson Pass. And yet I found myself having great fun with this challenge. The
terrain was fairly easy for off-trail travel, traversing a broad slope with
generally easy travel under forest cover with little blowdown to trip one up.
After about 20 minutes I managed to lose the trail altogether. Though this trail
is not shown on my GPS, a second one following along Boulder Creek was, about
a mile and a half distance. I simply selected this next trail junction on the
GPS and used it to navigate towards. For more than an hour I wandered in this
fashion in an upwards traverse across the slope. With only a paper map and
compass I would have been utterly frustrated, but with the GPS I was blissfully
happy and enjoyed the nocturnal rambling immensely.
When I reached Boulder Creek I was mildy disappointed to find this second trail
was in no better condition than the one I had been supposedly following. In
fact I walked right by the trail without recognizing it as such, and only after
I ran up against the creek did I find it with some searching. For the next
several miles to Thompson Lake I did a decent job of following the trail, and
since it was depicted on my GPS I could correct left or right to find it again
if I lost it for any length of time. It was just growing light out as I passed
by the lake and an empty campsite I found at the north end. The trail up to
Thompson Pass was hard to follow even in the growing daylight, but it mattered
little since the slope was more or less uniform and just as easy to hike up
with or without the trail. It was 6:30a before I reached the pass, the only
sign or marker I found there was
a duck atop one of the many boulders. It was
a short distance from the pass to the edge of the crest where I got my first
view of 
Mt. Shinn.
The sun was just rising and could be seen 
far to the north
alighting atop the Clark and Cathedral Ranges in Yosemite as well as
the Ritter Range just to the east. Lost Lake and Florence Lake were still in
shadow in 
the foreground.
It was very easy hiking along the crest, roughly west to east.
Where the north faces were often sheer cliffs of glacier-fractured granite,
the south side of the crest
was far gentler with a friendly mix of sand and granite under a thin forest
cover. Hiking in the shade up to this point, the sun finally caught up with me
as I went over the hump of Pt. 10,640ft about a mile southwest of Mt. Shinn. I
had a good view of Shinn's West Slopes described by Secor as class 2 along with
the 
intervening terrain.
It looked to be easier and faster to drop down to 
the small meadow
southwest of Shinn rather than continue along the crest and approach along
Shinn's South Ridge. I had a good view of 
this ridge as well and
it appeared quite serrated and at least class 3, perhaps more. I decided to
tackle the easier route from the west, then leave the South Ridge for my
continuation to Ward Mtn.
Dropping off the crest from Pt. 10,640ft was easy enough over immense slabs
that lead down towards the meadow. After crossing the meadow I started up the
southwest slopes with an 
ascending traverse
leading towards the summit. This
proved more difficult than the advertised class 2 as I found myself on no small
amount of class 3 rock, though it was generally good quality and enjoyable.
(The class 2 routes can be found in chutes starting north of the meadow,
directly west of the summit.) By 8:20a I had found my way to the top of the
summit blocks atop Mt. Shinn. The views stretched
north into Yosemite and 
south
as far as the Kaweah Divide where the primary summits could be distinctly
identified. Between these two extremes to 
the east
is a panorama of hundreds of
peaks throughout the John Muir Wilderness and SEKI National Park. Mt. Humphreys,
the iconic peak overlooking the town of Bishop in the Owens Valley, could be
seen poking up behind these other peaks. A 
glass jar
contained a handful of
papers, most all of them from attendees of USCS's Wilderness Orientation
program, dating back only
a few years. I added my name to a random scrap and put the jar back where I
found it.
The descent off the South Ridge proved to be the best part of a day.
It is not so much a descent as it is a traverse back to the main crest to
the south. The 
rock formations along it remind me of the wave
features on Matthes Crest in Yosemite. 
The scrambling
was class 3 for most of the 25 minutes I was on this short stretch of fun rock.
The exposure on 
the east side is vertical, even
overhanging in places. The west side is easier, but there a a number of places
along the ridge that are committing, without escapes off either side. I was
able to stay within 20 feet of the ridgeline in all but one place that was near
the end of the traverse, and for that I dropped about 30ft down on the west
side to get around it. The rock was solid, coarse granite that was loaded with
chickenheads to make even the exposed, nearly vertical moves comfortable.
Back on the crest, I continued east is a large arc. One can easily walk right
up to 
the cliffs that drop down hundreds off feet to the snow and
talus below,
but doing so can certainly make one nervous. I kept a more respecting distance
from the edge in case a sudden gust might come up or, more likely, in case I
accidently tripped while taking in the views. There are two features I found in
this portion of the crest that I found most impressive and held me up for
further investigation. The features are 
large cracks, 2-4ft
in width that rend
the cliffs their entire height of about 200ft, extending horizontally into
the cliff edge perhaps 50-100ft. A skilled climber could use one of these
features to chimney their way up from the bottom. The gap was small enough that
I could easily jump or even step across it, but the 
amazing depth made
me nervous in doing so. There were periodically 
large chockstones
that had dropped into and then wedged themselves at various points in gap,
lined up like pearls
on a string. I took a number of photos of these formations before moving on.
Ward Mtn is simply listed as 'The West Slope is class 2" in Secor. This is
usually reserved for trivial summits, but Ward proved to be decidedly
non-trivial. 
Viewed from the crest, the summit appears to be a series
of closely-spaced summit blocks at the south end of a short summit ridge. The
South Ridge facing the crest looks daunting because of the smoother
features seen in 
the upper third.
The West Slope looked class 2 as advertised. I approached from along
the crest, descending to a shallow saddle just south of Ward Mtn that did not
require the loss of much elevation. I started up the easier rocks at the base of
the South Ridge and sort of just kept going from there. The rock was much like
that on Shinn, solid, rough granite with plenty of chickenheads. By manuevering
around a handful of obstacles, I reached a point high on the ridge where the
options suddenly became limited. The chickenheads helped me up an exposed
section just west of the ridge, only to be confronted with a 15-foot class 4-5
section that had no easier bypass. There seemed to be plenty of holds on the
rock above, but they were not to my liking and I wasn't feeling bold enough to
give it a try. I retreated back off the ridge by another means that presented
itself, then moved over towards the West Slope where I finally gained the
summit ridge.
There are 
three blocks
of approximately equal height. The highest of these by
my quick study appears to be at the south end, the hardest to reach. I had to
drop down about 30ft on the east side and across a ledge of sorts before being
able to reach it. Most of this was class 3, some of it pretty stiff, so I don't
see how the mountain can be dismissed simply as class 2. I found no cairn or
register but I doubted others hadn't been there before me. I had a PVC register
that Adam had given to me a few weeks earlier and this seemed like a good
summit to leave it on. He had coopted the register, book and pen from a summit
in Nevada that already had another register. When I opened the pen to make an
entry, I quickly found myself awash in blue ink that had somehow leaked
out of the casing. I stared at the pen in disbelief, trying to figure out if it
was salvageable, but that simply allowed more ink drops to land on my pants and
the cover of the 
register book.
I should have found something to wrap the pen
in and tucked it away in my pack, but in my momentary panic I simply tossed it
a great distance to keep the ink from enveloping me like the blob. Somewhere in
the rocks below the pen is awaiting its next victim. My guilty conscience
expects someone to send me a Wilderness Alliance photo of an injured marmot
whose fir had inexlicably become matted and taken on a blue hue.
The views from the summit are similar to those on Mt. Shinn with the exception
of the 
eastern view.
In that direction, one can see the whole of the glacially
carved San Joaquin River valley, the river clearly visible more than five miles
away as it rises to the split where Piute Creek goes north into Humphreys Basin
and the Evolution/Goddard Creeks go south. Above this fork, Pavilion Dome rises
some 4,000ft from the waters below. To the northeast, the PCT can be seen
carved into the north side of the valley as it climbs towards Seldon Pass
further north.
My intention had been to follow the Northwest Ridge down from Ward towards
the San Joaquin River and Florence Lake, and initially that's where I headed.
There were a series of ducks along the ridgeline as I descended the first
several hundred feet, evidence that others had not only explored the summit
but felt a need or desire to help others in their quest. Finding these ducks
more annoying than helpful, I knocked them over as I came across them. The
blocky ridge gave way to a loose talus slope leading down
the north side of
the mountain. To the left was a saddle with the northeast ridgeline, the west
side of which led down to
Ward Mtn Lake. As the NW Ridge looked to grow blocky
again, I changed plans and decided to head down to the lake, maybe take a swim,
and follow the outlet down to the river nearly 3,000ft below.
Though steep, it was easy enough to get down to the lake over class 2 terrain.
I had not seen a single mosquito all day, but at the lake's edge I found
enough to deter me from taking a swim and subjecting most of my body's surface
area to these pests. Heading northwest, I dropped below the cirque holding Ward
Mtn Lake and descended hundreds of feet over
granite slabs under light forest
cover. This would have been ideal had it gone on for the remaining 2,000ft down
to the river, but alas we don't get to design the terrain on our ramblings
across these lands. At the steepest section around 8,800ft
a small stream went
down a series of exfoliating granite slabs for about 600ft. The water was cold,
though not icily so, and I took about 20 minutes to strip and clean myself in
the brisk waters that ran across the
warm granite exposed to the sunshine. Not
quite as refreshing as a swim, but an enjoyable break nonetheless.
At around 7,800ft the slopes began to level out to flatter terrain in the
vicinity of the river, the forest cover growing more dense. There was a huge
amount of blowdown strewn about the forest floor with large tree trunks lying
haphazardly, sometimes stacked three high like so many Pick-Up Sticks from the
game we played as a kid. This stuff wasn't so much fun, however, as I slowly
made my way through the morass, stepping carefully over a zillion obstacles,
wondering if I was going to twist an ankle or have some other mishap in the
process. I eventually reached the edge of
the river and found the going easier.
Where the river had cut through eons of granite, it left banks of granite slabs
that made for good travel. Even with the inevitable ups and downs and getting
around minor obstacles, it was far better than the forest mess I'd just left.
I followed the south bank of the river for perhaps half a mile until I came
within sight of 
the footbridge built for the Blaney Meadow Trail.
Three
fishermen were a short distance upstream from the bridge fishing in the
white water
created by a 20-foot drop in the riverbed. They were perhaps 30 feet above
the water, fishing on either side of the cliffs formed there. As I was passing
by, one
of their poles took a sudden bend downwards and in less than a minute he had
pulled a good-sized trout that looked to be about 12 inches long up to
his perch.
I gave him a thumbs up from across the river, got a wave in return, and
then continued on my way.
It took another hour and a half to make my way about four miles from the bridge
back to 
the north end of Florence Lake and 
the trailhead.
Aside from the three
fishermen, I saw no one else until I was back to the day use area on that side
of the lake. It was about 3:30p, making for almost 13hrs on the day. It was a
few hours longer than I thought it might take, but I still managed to get home
before 9p and see the family before the kids went off to bed. I went to bed
shortly thereafter as I found myself growing suddenly tired and in need of some
make-up sleep. It was such an enjoyable day that I was already thinking about
where I might go the following week for another day trip to the Sierra...