Tag: backpacking

A Quick Traverse of California’s White Range – Part 1

2021.06.23

How convenient that I live 12 miles from the summit of Nevada’s highest peak, Boundary and the start of a hike along the crest of the White Mountains? 😜 Naturally I’m going to put on a backpack and hike the thing! I started out a few miles north of Montgomery Pass at noon. Montgomery Pass, a high point on highway 6 northeast of Benton, is home of the old ghost town of Mount Montgomery. You’d have a hard time believing it based on the state of the “town” today, but it used to be a bustling little spot with a post office, a casino, a hotel and restaurant, cabins for rent, and a brothel. I’ve enjoyed living a few miles down a dirt road outside the area […]

Hayduke Trail Sections 8-14

2017.11.28

Hayduke, Hiking

(updated fall 2019, fall 2020, winter 20/21, spring 2022, spring 2023, summer 2024, winter 2025) These are organized section by section, east to west. Looking for sections 1-7? Looking for Hayduke Trail Tips? Hayduke Section 8 Round Valley Draw is super cool but it is MUCH more difficult to hike north than it is south. I recommend having cord or rope for this, especially if you are alone. I managed with 1/8″ 800lb dyneema cord, which I always carry 50 feet of. If solo, chimneying DOWN after lowering your pack shouldn’t be too bad. Then you’re mostly set except one or more further smaller drops. If your ankles and knees are strong, you’ll be fine. This route can change yearly due to flooding, so my advice about […]

Hayduke Trail Sections 1-7

Hayduke, Hiking

(updated fall 2019, fall 2020, winter 20/21, spring 2022, spring 2023, summer 2024, winter 2025) These are organized section by section, east to west. You can also read my Hayduke Trail Tips, and read about Hayduke Trail Sections 8-14. Ok, ready? Section 1 Get ready for shoes full of sand, and then wet shoes. I recommend the main Hayduke trail out the gate, because the alternates involve significant erosion, especially as more and more people hike the Hayduke. The places they visit are really better done like the tourists do them, from the car, because for the pretty parts you’ll be thronged with tourists anyway. The Hayduke heading East from the Park gate is a road walk, but it’s got a good view, is a good build […]

Hayduke Trail Tips

Hayduke, Hiking

(updated fall 2019, fall 2020, winter 20/21, spring 2022, spring 2023, summer 2024, winter 2025) Hayduke Trail Section Information Read my section-by-section tips for Hayduke sections 1-7 and Hayduke sections 8-14. Maps & Route-finding I recommend getting the Hayduke Trail book. Read it. Carry it. Read it again whenever you’re puzzled or bored. I photographed every page and stored it on my phone. I’ve read every sentence in this book at least five times. There’s a lot of helpful and interesting bits buried in there, yet it’s pretty cursory at the same time. I admire the person who hikes the Hayduke using only this book, map and compass. Really that’s all that’s needed, and what an immersive experience! If you do that, please reach out cuz I […]

Hiking the Lonesome Miner Trail – Part 1

2017.05.02

Hiking, Lonesome Miner Trail

I finished a solo tour of old mines in the Inyo mountain range of central California west of Death Valley. The “Lonesome Miner Trail” — what the late Wendell Moyer* called it — is 40-50 miles of rough, hard-to-follow disused trail involving somewhere near 17,000 vertical feet of elevation gain/loss. Because I didn’t have shuttles arranged, I added about 50 bonus miles (and 14k more vertical feet) to the route: I walked thru Death Valley to the Hunter Cyn trailhead. That was 18 miles with 7.5 liters of water on my back, only to experience torrential rain the first night in San Lucas Canyon. Ugh! I didn’t have to carry all that water! To avoid what was pretty heavy snow on steep terrain, I hiked out the […]

High Sierra Access Passes & Transportation

2017.04.15

Pacific Crest Trail

Minor updates to this snow report and trailhead access information page were made Spring 2023 because of the high snow (water content) year. Basically what I’m pointing out is that hikers should plan to carry extra food as they might have to spend an extra day or two just accessing trail towns from the trail. In other words, be prepared to WALK MOST THE WAY TO TOWN. In snow. PCT/JMT High Snow Alternate Route I mapped out a bypass route which I myself would gladly hike (and which I have indeed hiked and explored a lot of) instead of hiking in the High Sierra summer 2023: https://caltopo.com/m/ER3HU. The Owens Valley is wet and green, something some of us might not see again in our lives, so this […]

Dear PCT class of 2017

2017.04.11

Hiking, Opinion, Pacific Crest Trail

2017 snow pack is the biggest whomper we have seen in 20 years. Forget about 2005 and 2011, we are entering new territory with just about as much (well, more) snow but more heat from our warming planet. Snow is not only STILL falling in the Sierra, but has begun to melt, with significantly high and early - dangerous - runoff.

Hayduke Desert Panoramas

2016.06.18

Hayduke, Hiking

My 850-mile backpacking trip this Spring took me through Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, through all these National Parks and wild lands I’d never seen before. What better way to see them for the first time than to walk through them and sleep in their dirt? I couldn’t think of one. I took some neato panoramic photos, so maybe the next best way to look at them is to click on them, blow them up in your browser, look around, and pretend you’re there. Most these iPhone panoramas were taken in remote areas, difficult to get to by car or foot, and most of them were on detours or alternates off the main Hayduke route. Get yourself an eye full of red rock! Arches Canyonlands I took […]

Taboose Pass to Highway 395 “Bonus Miles”

2015.11.28

Hiking, Sierra High Route

Abram – the mysterious fellow I met on my L2H hike in October – introduced me to the wonderful concept of “bonus miles.” We’re lucky enough as it is to be out hiking, right? Thus, any extra miles hiked to get here or there that aren’t on the itinerary are “bonus miles.” Bonus Miles Photos and Video These are shots from the bonus miles tagged to the end of my Sierra High Route trek, getting down off Taboose Pass and back to Lone Pine. This involved getting picked up by a trucker, which was a very cool first for me. I was done with my epic Sierra High Route hike at around 1pm October 21st, but I was still deep in the Sierra. A matter of note […]

Sierra High Route Part 1: Roads End to Taboose Pass

2015.11.26

Hiking, Sierra High Route

October 19 – Road’s End to Granite Basin This 35-mile bit of the SHR took me 5 days (an extra day to hike 20 miles to the trailhead, and an extra day to hike 10+ miles out). On the afternoon of October 19th, I made it to Road’s End. I had already covered ten miles in the morning; here are the next ten. Going up Copper Creek Trail made for one of the more difficult days I’ve had on trail. It was a gorgeous, groomed trail, even after angry storms blew through the week before. But this trail is straight up. From 5036 feet at the trailhead to of something like that to the 10,347 feet at the Granite Basin lip – that’s 5312 feet in under […]

A Walk from Onion Valley to Road’s End

2015.11.05

Hiking, Pacific Crest Trail, Sierra High Route

In the middle of October, after having finished an amazing L2H hike with two great guys (Bulldozer and Abram), I was looking at wrapping up my season and heading back to Portland to spend the holidays with my mother. But it was driving me crazy that I hadn’t finished my Sierra High Route hike. I walked around Mt. Williamson, summiting two 14ers to compensate, and I made some excuses, but still it was driving me crazy when I wasn’t trying to put it out of my mind. I’m not sure I’d feel right if I didn’t complete the SHR in one season as I intended. LoveNote showed up in Lone Pine and planted the seed again, a few days later. When I told her my excuses, she […]

Making Steve Roper Proud

2015.10.19

Sierra High Route

The Sierra High Route is a 195-mile long route charted through the backcountry — and along some existing trails — of the High Sierra Nevada. It was devised by noted Sierra climber and historian Steve Roper, and originally, discreetly, published in book form in 1982. I first learned about it in 2013 during my thru-hike when the wonderfully thought-full hiker “Manchurian.” Manchurian hiked a section of the Sierra High Route between Reds Meadow and Tuolumne, I’m not sure how much of it he conquered but I remember him telling me it wasn’t too hard, and that the only sign of humanity he found out there was a deflated helium balloon. When the Pacific Crest Trail and it’s burgeoning “culture” totally disenfranchised me earlier this year, I made […]

Sierra High Route Part 2: Taboose Pass to Piute Pass

2015.10.15

Hiking, Opinion, Sierra High Route

Day 1: Taboose Pass to Taboose Pass August 16th. I started the day having leftover apple pie, cinnamon rolls, and fresh hot coffee with LoveNote and Burly White’s wedding party near South Lake. This was a beautiful wedding, a marriage of two great people who met while hiking the Continental Divide trail and fell in love. They crowned their hike and sealed the deal by adopting a puppy together, and this great dog, “Huckleberry,” dug holes between the two as they voiced their oaths. Behind them the backdrop of the Inconsolable Range and Bishop Pass Mountains Mt. Goode, Mt. Johnson, and Mt. Thompson seemed only painted on canvas — it was that perfect. I was watching them get married and looking at familiar High Sierra at the […]

Lowest To Highest

2015.10.10

Hiking, Lowest to Highest

GET L2H MAPS The Lowest to Highest Trail (L2H) is a challenging route that runs from the lowest point in the contiguous USA (Badwater, Death Valley, -282 feet) to its highest, Mount Whitney (14,505 feet), across 130 miles. This distance is run yearly as an ultramarathon, but there is also a less-known hiking route that avoids the highways. There are other possible L2H routes plotted by other parties. I met one man who leads groups on one such route and am amazed nobody has died that way yet. There are a lot of ways to get from Badwater to Whitney, but this particular hiking route is one of the least absurd. Although still… it’s very absurd! Typically the L2H is walked in the late winter (February-early March) […]

Sierra High Route Part 3: Piute Pass to Reds Meadow

2015.09.11

Hiking, Sierra High Route

Day 1: Piute Pass Trailhead to French Canyon July 24th. This hike was kicked off with a pleasant hitch in a big truck from a fellow named Kelly. Kelly had just dropped his niece “Sierra” off at Mt. Whitney so that she could summit, and was headed back to Bishop where he was visiting family. Kelly and his niece had just finished the John Muir Trail (JMT) and had themselves hitch hiked, so he was eager to “pay it forward.” He was not only super fun to chat with, but he stopped by Great Basin bakery in Bishop (so much better than Schatz FWIW) and bought me a coffee, a muffin, and a baguette to pack out, AND he drove me all the way to the Piute […]

Sierra High Route Part 4: Reds Meadow to Tuolumne Meadows

2015.09.07

Hiking, Sierra High Route

This ~50-mile stretch of the Sierra High Route took me four days. I left from Reds Meadows near Mammoth Lakes on a Wednesday afternoon at 12:30pm and came out in Tuolumne Meadows on a Sunday at 11:00am with heels on fire – I wanted to make breakfast at the diner! Day 1: Devil’s Postpile to Superior Lake July 15th. It began with a pleasant enough jaunt along the PCT/JMT towards Devil’s Postpile, a mind-bogglingly geometric statue sculpted by no other force than Mother Nature. Mostly hexagonal (44.5%) and pentagonal (37.5%) rock posts — some of them near perfect — arise out of the ground up a couple hundred feet. They cracked into this shape when a mass of volcanic lava cooled slowly gazillions of years ago, and […]

Sierra High Route, 2015

2015.09.04

Hiking, Sierra High Route

The Sierra High Route (SHR) is an alternate route — not a trail — through the high Sierra Nevada suggested by Steve Roper in his 1990 book Sierra High Route: Traversing Timberline County. It somewhat parallels the John Muir Trail (JMT) for most its length, and briefly uses the JMT to move from one crest to another. Steve Roper agonized over whether to share the route in a book; he feared its pristine nature would be damaged by overuse. Between the months of June and August 2015, I had the privilege to take on every mile of the SHR, solo. I attacked it in a south to north fashion; however, I started with a chunk at the north, and hiked subsequent chunks moving south by a chunk […]