Sat, Aug 11, 2001
|
With: | David Wright |
Toby Kraft |
Split Mountain is one of the lowest 14ers in California, rising to just 40 feet past that arbitrary limit, but a 14er all the same, and a designated Emblem Peak due to the fine views it commands from its summit. The usual access point is through the Red Lake Trailhead on the east side of the Sierra Crest, a rather remote one at that. It requires 4WD to reach, and is about an hour of driving beyond the last paved road. Neither David nor myself had a vehicle capable of negotiating this tough access road, but we were fortunate that David had conscripted a co-worker to join us who had a very nice Toyota 4WD SUV for just this purpose. Toby had driven in late the night before, with no time for acclimatization. In his early thirties, Toby seemed fit enough, but I had little expectation that he'd be able to do this tough dayhike without some measure of acclimatizing. We'd find out soon enough. Normally done over several days, we knew this would be one of the toughest hikes planned. It wasn't the 15 miles of hiking so much as the 7,500ft of elevation gain that might do us in.
We were up at 4:15a, groggy but awake, and were heading out the door of the motel in Big Pine by 4:50a. I had researched the directions to the trailhead a great deal, as they have caused much confusion to previous parties. And since we were going to be driving much of it in the dark, it would be most helpful to have as little doubt as possible at each fork in the road. Of this we did a fine job, never missing a turnoff the entire way. The directions found at climber.org were excellent. Unfortunately we couldn't say the same for the road. Once past McMurry Meadow, the road gets ugly fast. If you care about things like the paint on the side of your vehicle, you are advised to avoid this road. The brush grows close on both sides of the narrow road, but it is not a very pliable. It scrapes along the sides like a wire brush, and is sure to leave permanent reminders on even the toughest paint jobs. Whether this bothered Toby or not I never knew, as he seemed to be more focused on keeping the car upright on the road. There were large boulders to negotiate, a pipe crossing a dry creek that was only party buried in the streambed, and the noticeable absence of light to make it tough to negotiate. But with two navigators, each with a variant of the directions, and the excellent skills of our driver, we managed to make it to the trailhead in about an hour, without missing a turn, and all in one piece.
It was already light enough that we wouldn't need flashlights, and
the sun was
about to crest the
White Mountains to the east.
There is a large NF trailhead sign in the small dirt lot, fairly new and seemingly
out of place in this remote site. I read all the information on the trailhead sign
while I waited for the other two to make ready, and at 6a we headed out. The trail
starts out just above 6500ft, fairly low for eastside trailheads, and it is
subsequently dry and scrubby in
the lower reaches.
The trail roughly follows Red
Mountain Creek (But where is Red Mountain?) as it climbs 5 miles and almost 4,000ft
to Red Lake. Much of this is tedious, hot once the sun comes out, and sandy and
loose in many places. We were fortunate to start out very early before the sun had
arisen, but that wasn't to last long. Almost from the beginning I didn't stay with
David and Toby, to nobody's surprise. I planned to wait for them at Red Lake, where
the trail ends, and from there lead up over the cross-country terrain. There are
two small streams coming down from Mt. Tinemaha that intersect the trail and provide
some surprising jungle-like growth around the trail - climbing under aspens and alder,
wet ground underneath, dense greenery crowding in from the sides. Several trip
reports commented on losing the trail in various locales, but aside from one of
these dense-growth regions, it seemed fairly obvious. The steep canyon finally began
to relent, and as the slope lessened and I approached the upper canyon, I got my
first close views of Split Mtn
through the trees.
I reached the
small lake below Red
Lake about 7:45a, and here the trail begins to
peter out. It makes an effort to reach Red Lake, but several hundred yards shy of
that target I lost it for good. I climbed up to a small knoll on the east side of
Red Lake at 8a and had a grand view of both the lake and
Split Mtn towering high
above, still over 3,000ft of climbing to go. I took a very long break here, much
longer than I anticipated. After about half an hour I began to wonder where the
other two were, and I began scouting about for them in case we had missed each other.
I climbed down to the lake's edge, then downstream a hundred yards, and a wide arc
around to where I started, but saw no sign. There were no other campers about, and
I seemed to be all alone. After scouting about I concluded that it was possible that
they had bypassed me to the east, and might in fact be off ahead of me. I waited
around another 15 minutes before deciding to head out. It was possible that they
turned back, but that seemed very unlikely, and I convinced myself they were most
likely ahead of me.
I headed northwest towards the still higher canyon on Split's NE side, climbing
up fields of broken granite boulders, spilled down from Mt. Tinemaha's southwest
side over countless eons. The moon was just setting now, right between
the twin summits of Split Mtn.
I kept my eyes peeled ahead of me, looking for movements
in the rocks ahead, and periodically I would
look behind and scan for signs down
below. During one of these backwards scans I
spotted
two figures not that very far
below me, and in fact I could recognize David by his distinctive hat. I stopped
where I was and perched myself on a rock while I waited the five minutes it took
them to catch up. It seems they had in fact passed me back at Red Lake, but had
stopped near the lake's inlet side to filter water for their water bottles. I must
have then passed them not shortly before they headed up themselves. Once regrouped,
it became apparent that Toby wasn't having a good time with the altitude. He was
feeling tired and had the beginnings of a headache, and was running out of steam.
David,
by comparison, was looking much stronger, and had a good bit of go left in
him.
Toby decided to continue higher,
and the three of us headed up to the next challenge.
We were soon climbing over the giant moraines left by a retreating glacier. The
boulders piled high were both large and loose, and it required a great deal of
caution to negotiate safely. I was soon ahead of the other two a second time as
I moved through these boulder fields a bit faster, and soon found myself looking
up the steep headwalls leading up to the Sierra Crest between Split Mtn and Mt.
Prater. I had expected a
large snowfield here,
but it had retreated to a much
smaller remnant of it's usual self, and the steepest portions to the west were
entirely free of snow. I looked around for what had been described as class 3 to
reach the crest, but it seemed a good deal easier. In fact there were many variations
one could take in this broad chute and the only problem was that it was fairly
steep and loose, but really nothing more than class 2. As I headed up this steep
section, I saw that David and Toby had stopped below in the flattest part of the
canyon. Toby had decided that he'd had enough and that he'd take a nap there while
David and I continued. Content that he was just tired and not suffering unduly from
altitude sickness, David continued on.
I found the loose terrain on this slope particularly tiring, and I began to feel
the effects of so many feet of climbing in a single day. I took rests often, then
would try to forge ahead only to find myself quickly pooping out again. When I
reached what I thought was the Sierra Crest, it turned out to be only a side spur
off the main crest and I still had a quarter mile and much climbing to reach the
crest proper. At least I was getting some fine views now, particularly of
Mt. Prater,
The Thumb, and
Birch Mtn to the northwest.
It was good that David was far below me as I found myself knocking
much rock and sand loose, a number of the more energetic rocks picking up
considerable speed as they rocketed down the slope. I finally managed to reach the
crest, but was dismayed to find yet another boulder field on a fairly steep slope
where Secor has described a class 1 climb. Not even close. At least the boulders
weren't as loose as the moraine below, nor as steep as the slope I'd just ascended.
Resigned, I headed up the last 500 feet. I took as many breaks here as I did on
the steeper slope below, as I was clearly tiring. I made up excuses to take breaks,
photographing the lovely
sky pilots that grew on these
barren slopes, a view of
Red Lake peeking
through a couloir in the mountain, and some more
sky pilots when I ran out
of other ideas. I wondered how David might be
fairing, but I could see him nowhere below me. Finally, at 12:30p, I reached
the summit.
Success. The views were impressive in all directions, living up to its stature as
an emblem peak. The weather had been gorgeous all day, and I had nothing on top
except my long sleeve
I was on the summit 50 minutes when I began to have doubts that David was going
to make it. I climbed down a short distance to where I might see further down the
slope, since the view from the summit is blocked by the gradual curve to the
summit. I
We headed down together, both of us agreeing it would be better to do so for
David's sake who was feeling out of sorts - partially exhaustion, partially
the altitude, the exact mix hard to tell, but not really that important. We
climbed down to the saddle, then down the side spur off to the northeast. David
was looking better, moving slow still, but more steady. I went ahead on the
steep, loose slope heading down, trying to stay well ahead of David's firing
range. I let a great deal of material down in front of me as I moved quickly,
but fortunately David loosed much less rock. Only one serious rock came down
in my direction, and I was fortunate to have a large boulder to duck behind.
Reaching the bottom of the slope, I wandered over to find Toby half napping, and
together we waited for David to join us. Toby still had a bit of a headache,
but the rest seemed to do him good and renewed his energy. He'd been waiting
more than a few hours now, and looked to be a bit antsy and ready to go. Ten
minutes later we were all together, and
At Red Lake we spotted a tent set up not far from the lake, though we didn't
go nearby to investigate or look for inhabitants. Just below Red Lake we
came across a few backpackers heading up to camp at the lake, the only folks
we would see all day. I forged ahead, leaving David and Toby a last time. I
managed to get lost in
Toby's excellent driving skillfully negotiated the treacherous road (really
it was only bad in a few spots), and we made it back to Big Pine as the sun
was setting. After cleaning up we ate dinner at a very forgettable pizza
place (the only one, we think). Though we were the only patrons in the place,
it seemed to take absolutely forever to make our pizza. Dehydrated as we
were, none of us felt like drinking beer, but we managed to down a good deal
of root beer before our pizza finally arrived. But it had been an exciting
day, and we were pretty proud of our adventure. Mt. Whitney was scheduled
for tomorrow, and by comparison it seemed like it would be a rest day. :)
Continued...
T-shirt. There was a
slight breeze at the summit, and I got
out my light jacket to help keep me warm as my body cooled down. I figured it might
be a while before David arrived, and I took in all the views in much more detail
than I normally might. A number of other Emblem peaks were visible from the summit -
Williams and Whitney to the south,
Goddard to the west,
North Palisade and Mt. Humphreys
to the northwest. The beatiful
Arrow Peak and Bench
Lake could be seen to the southwest, and the expanses of the Owens
Valley stretching from the
northeast to the
southeast.
I found a nice
register box and made an
entry myself, and
sort of lazed around a bit, trying to find a combination of boulders that I could
comfortably lie down on. After about 25 minutes I began to wonder where David might
be, expecting that he should have joined me by now. I began looking through the
summit register more thoroughly, reading many of the entries going back ten years.
I spotted Hans Florine's entry from 1998 when he and his pals were doing their
record climb of the California Fourteeners in under 10 days. Most impressive was
spotted David not too far
below, but his progress was very slow, and it
was evident that he was having a hard time. He eventually looked up and spotted
me, we waived, then David continued up slowly. It took another 20 minutes, but
David finally
reached me and we
walked the last 50 yards to the summit.
David
was thoroughly tired, but elated. It was only the second summit of eight so far,
and this one was especially sweet. In an attempt a few years back, David had
turned around after reaching the crest, less than an hour from the summit. He
thought he might not make it again, but this time he found enough inner drive
to keep pushing to the top. David needed a rest, so we stayed another 20 minutes
to let David reconstitute himself for the push down. In all I was on the summit
for an hour and a half, by far the longest I have ever stayed on any summit, as
my usual stay is less than 15 minutes.
continued our
way down. We stayed more
or less together until we got back to
Red Lake.
A marmot came out to see what
was making a disturbance in his neighborhood, and he stood on his rock making
some chirping noises that seemed to indicate his displeasure with us. He
finally left his perch when I approached a little too close trying to get a
better picture, though he appeared again once I'd moved down the slope and
gave a final get-out-of-town chirp to get his last licks in.
the underbrush
surrounding one of the streamlet crossings,
as I went 30 yards or so down an alternate route before it ran out and I
realized my mistake. As I climbed back up I noted several cairns nicely
placed to prevent just this manuever, but I had conveniently ignored them.
Coming down the lower section,
the trailhead could
be seen far below, though I still had perhaps 30 minutes of hiking.
The loose sand was less of a hindrance on the way down, and I made pretty
good time,
arriving back at the
car at 6p. I had some time to enjoy the quiet and watch the sun's shadow creep
further east
across the Owens
Valley. David and Toby showed up 20 minutes later, and though we are all
rather tired by now, we didn't look nearly as bad as I had expected.
For more information see these SummitPost pages: Split Mountain
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