Sep 5, 2023
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Etymology |
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Kristine and I had concluded the two days of activity in Alpine County that we'd planned. I had another full day and wanted to do a couple of summits in the Virginia Lakes area of the Hoover Wilderness that Kristine had already done. She tried to talk me into a handful of summits closer to home in Douglas County while I countered with a couple of bonus summits, Summers BM and Kavanaugh Ridge, that she hadn't done. In the end, she stayed home and I did all four of my suggested summits, taking most of the day.
I followed the good trail west for several miles, past picturesque Blue, Cooney, and Frog Lakes to reach a high saddle on Peak 11,568ft's SW Ridge, about a mile from its summit. I would pick up this peak on the way back, choosing to first visit Peak 11,270ft, a few miles further west on the Sierra Crest. From the saddle, I descended into the Green Creek drainage, with views of Summit Lake to the northwest and Hoover Lakes to the northeast. I descended the trail to just below the 10,500-foot level, then left it to start traversing west towards my summit. The topo map shows a handful of small, permanent snowfields in the area, but this year the lingering snow was quite substantial even in September. I'd neglected to bring axe and crampons which would have given me more options, so had to work around the white stuff to find a snow-free route on the steep slopes. I felt somewhat lucky to find a workable route that went at no more than class 3, with some fun scrambling to get me to the crest about half a mile SE of the summit. Once there, the going gets much easier, with a gentle drop to the saddle just below the summit on its SE side, then a standard class 2 talus scramble to get to the top after 2.5hr's effort.
The register jar at the summit held some loose scraps dating to 1999 and a register booklet left by Jason Lakey in 2012. The peak is alternately called "Summit Peak" and "Fathers Peak" by competing entries, but neither of these seem to have taken. I was amused to find the last three entries dating from 2020 were all fellow Sierra Challenge enthusiasts - Scott Barnes, Grant Miller, and Kristine Swigart. The summit sits on the northeast border of Yosemite with views looking down into the heavily forested Virginia Canyon. 10,000-12,000-foot peaks abound in all directions. I had kept an eye out during the ascent for an alternate way down, but none presented themselves, so back down the same way I went. After returning to the trail, I hiked back up to its apex at 12,100ft, then headed cross-country to the second peak to the northeast. At first glance, it appears this could be a tedious trek across much talus, but it worked out to be easier than expected, taking little more than half an hour from the trail. A most unusual sighting was a small frog, about an inch in length, hopping among the stones with no sign of water and very little vegetation about. I guessed he must have hopped his way up from one of the lakes below, the highest one being more than 500ft below the ridgeline I followed - tenacious little guy, but it seems his mountaineering exploits may be his undoing.
Dunderberg rises high to the northeast as a heap of orange talus, while the array of lakes in the Virginia Creek drainage (not be confused with Virginia Canyon in Yosemite) are spread out below to the southeast. I left a register atop this one before looking for an alternate way down. Rather than return along the ridge, I figured it would be easier if I could find a more direct way off the east or southeast side of the peak. I'd spied several possibilities while plying the trail hours earlier, but from the summit I discovered what is probably the easiest and least technical way down, all class 2 talus with some decent boot skiing. The east side from the summit is fraught with cliffs, but there is a nice escape route just to the right (south) of the cliffs that gets one neatly into the talus bowl SE of the summit. No snow, no class 3 rock, just a cruiser descent that got me down to the trail in about half an hour. From there, it was less than two miles back to the TH, allowing me to finish up by 4:45p, about fifteen minutes faster than my initial guess for this one.
I had planned to have dinner at the Whoa Nellie Deli before heading back home via Tioga Pass, but decided instead to head north and return over Sonora Pass to give me a chance to do a little Jeeping on the west side of the range the next morning. I found a spot on the east side of the pass at a bend in the highway around the 7,500-foot level. It was too close to the highway to say it would be quiet, but there were only a handful of vehicles going over in the dead of night, and I had good cell coverage to allow me to make plans the next day with the PB app...
Continued...
This page last updated: Tue Sep 12 15:20:28 2023
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