Sat, Jun 13, 2020
|
With: | Karl Fieberling |
Our third day in the Sierra National Forest had us starting with an outing to Red Mtn, an almost-10,000-foot summit with more than 800ft of prominence. We had discovered the day before that the Red Mtn OHV route was still two days from opening, keeping us from driving that route. Not that we would have been able to, mind you, as we came to find it's a pretty serious trail that my jeep would not have been equipped to handle. With some quick research, I found an alternate route that worked quite nicely. We did several other hikes afterwards, including a 10mi, 3,000-foot gain effort in the Kaiser Wilderness in the afternoon. Overall, a pretty full day.
We descended the
southeast side of Red Mtn and made our way
to Red Lake and around its inlet which we found quite marshy - probably would
have been better to give it a wider berth, but
the lake looked lovely
in the morning light. There were nice
campsites along the north side
of the lake, probably a welcome respite for anyone who managed to drive up the
rough OHV Trail. On the other side of the lake, we took about 20min to
ascend the unnamed Peak 9,377ft. It had a short, squat
summit boulder that could have
been a tough problem if it was 5ft higher. The summit is forested and
devoid of any real views. We then descended northwest down to Red Lake again,
this time crossing below the outlet, low enough to avoid the dense willows
growing closer to the lake. We got back to the OHV road and retraced our steps
for about half a mile, then went cross-country on a descending traverse to
more directly return to the jeep. We kept looking for the old road/trail
shown on the GPSr, but never found a trace of it. We were
back to the jeep by
10:15a, much sooner than expected as we finished the main program planned for
the day. We would find more to do soon enough.
With the campground still closed due to COVID-19 concerns, we didn't realize
one could drive another half mile up from the lake to the trailhead,
and instead parked at the
day use lot at the lake below the campground.
Seems
others did the same thing - we saw a number of parties on the way up and down,
but not a single car at the dirt trailhead lot. The trail is easy to follow
though downfall from the past season has yet to be cleared. Though old, the
trail signs are still intact and serviceable, marking the
Wilderness boundary and
trail junctions. about a mile from
Nellie Lake we
came across a father with four kids in tow, ages about
7-13, heading uphill. Several were struggling with the elevation gain and dad
was already burdened with carrying several of their daypacks. A brave man, I
thought. A cruel father, some of the kids seemed to feel. We turned
off the trail where it goes over a saddle before the last quarter mile
drop to the lake. Here we headed up northwest towards the summit, about half
mile distance. The going is
sandy with some modest brush, but overall
good footing. Views
open up significantly as the forest gives way to
grass, flowers and open slopes. The final 100ft is a pile of
broken rock, partially guarded by a band of low brush at
the base. The
views were being partially obscurred by
clouds
that had developed over the area in the afternoon, but extended
north
into Yosemite, across the deep valley formed by the San Joaquin River.
The light winds were cold now, driving us off the summit sooner than we might
have liked. We left a register before starting down.
Karl led us east
off the summit, an alternate route choice with
none of the brush we'd had on the ascent and a pleasant walk for half a mile
along the
open stretch of Kaiser Ridge. We intersected one of the
spur trails
after 3/4mi and used that to return to the Nellie Lake Trail. We turned off
the trail again for the short climb to Peak 8,403ft, finding a surprisingly
difficult summit block at
the top.
The 10-foot block was vertical or overhanging
on all sides. It sat upon a larger block with a shoulder on the west side
that could be climbed to get one close to the top. With an abundance of wood
products scattered about the surrounding area, I declared that this was a good
opportunity for some natural aid climbing. Karl expressed no small amount of
concern when I suggested I could pile up some wood to gain access to the top of
the higher boulder. I gathered half a dozen
dead branches of varying
lengths and
leaned them against the west side of the summit boulder,
arranging them to give me
two steps
by which to climb up to the top. It was
a rickety sort of arrangement and Karl had to look away so as not to see the
thing collapse under my weight and plunge me to certain hurt. I stepped very
cautiously up, moving slowly to avoid shifting the logs under me, and then
clambered onto the rock. I took
a picture
of Karl below (on the other side
of the rock so as not to watch), then asked him to toss me up some small rocks
that I could use to leave
a register under. I was a little nervous
reversing the moves on the way down, but again, slow, deliberate movements
were called for and eventually got me down safe. I thought it was the most
interesting summit of the trip, but Karl wanted little to do with it.
We returned to the trail and continued our descent back
to the cars at
Huntington Lake, finishing up by 5:15p.
We met back up a the junction between Mushroom Rock and Black Point. I suggested Karl should go visit Mushroom Rock since the views were nice just before sunset. He came back reporting a successful ascent with similar disdain for the youthful party camped there. We ended up driving the short distance to the trailhead for Black Point and spent the night there, quite peacefully...
Continued...
This page last updated: Tue Jun 16 09:39:05 2020
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