On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
TKH
From the Palisades Lakes you walk up to and over Mather Pass on absolutely fabulous trail built during the Great Depression and still fabulous to this day. You then walk for a couple of miles through Upper Basin which right after Mather Pass is a bit austere, but becomes really pretty once you reach timberline where the trees can survive. You thren reach a creek crossing at Kings River which at this time of the summer is not too bad. It helps to be tall.
Next you climb up to Marjorie Lake which I had heard was a must-camp-at location for JMT hikers. I therefore avoided it, but as I passed by in the early morning hours I did not see any campers.
Lake Marjorie has two radically different sides, an austere one across the lake from the trail and a lovely grassy one that the trail runs through.
This may not look like your lawn and you may find my statement of “lovely grassy” an exaggeration, but we are at 11000 ft and at that elevation this counts for “lovely grassy”. Bite me!
The other side looks like this. Positively not grassy, but pretty in its own way IMHO
As you work your way up to Pinchot Pass you get to this sight of Lake 11500 on the North side of Pinchot Pass.
I was not so fortunate to have the sun illuminate the red flank of the mountain and the lake at the same time. The choice for this submission was sunlight on either the mountain or the lake and I decided to go for the unreal color of the lake.
The next basin after Pinchot Pass. This cirque was carved out by a glacier meaning all of this once was covered by ice several hundred if not a thousand feet thick.
I left the JMT here and went cross country.
I camped at the bottom of Colosseum Col which was snow-logged top to bottom on its North side, which is all I could see. I could have made it up (I had microspikes), but I had no idea what was awaiting me on the other side, so I chickened out. However, I had a very pleasant evening at the lakes below Colosseum Col.
As is often the case on this kind of adventure, you actually arrive at the place you had some worries about and you see that they were unwarranted (better this way than the other way around). I arrived at the top of Colosseum Col early next morning after climbing the snow field and I saw before me a rather gentle valley, easy to get down to and to cross.
Mt Baxter is the flattish peak on the left, Acrodetes Peak is the peak just off the center to the right. The dip in the middle with the snow tongue below it is Acrodetes Pass, aka Grasshopper Pass. If you are really nuts, you climb the snow tongue. I may just be nuts, but certainly not “really nuts”. I therefore took the conventional route which was bad enough. It is the ridge that you see sloping up to the left just below the Baxter peak. Farther down, outside the view from here, you have to climb a couloir or gully, which has a reputation. It lived up to it for me.
The ridge is talus, i.e. blocks of granite rocks the size of a dorm fridge to refrigerator or washer/drier combo size with a few car sized ones thrown in. Progress was very slow for me and eventually I cut across the flank below the Baxter peak to the ridge that runs down to Acrodetes Pass. Insane! It did not look too bad when I started the traverse, but it was just touch and go all the way across with very few islands of stable bedrock where you could take a breather.
I now know that I have to pace myself in such a way that I spend the night halfway up Mt. Baxter below the gully. I will then have all day to get across this monstrosity.
On the other side you have to descend an endless seeming talus slope, I did it from Acrodetes Pass. I would have had to do it from a ridge hidden from view in the picture above had I gone up to Baxter peak. This is the view from the pass towards the South.
It’s 1000 ft of this crap from the pass and 2000 ft from the ridge the standard route takes. The rocks are not stably nestled against each other, so they may move when you put weight on them. And it is not just the rock that you put weight on that may move, it may also be rock(s) below or above. Ugh!
And a side-on view of the descent from the ridge on the South side of Baxter Peak, my “alternative”. It’s about 2000 ft down the chossiest choss you ever chose. Yikes!
Eventually the struggle ends and you reach Baxter Lake and the world is right again.
MazeDancer
Great adventure and photos! Lake color is “unreal” indeed.
oldster
Love the photos. And admire your bravery in crossing all of those obstacles.
eclare
My legs hurt just looking at all of that loose rock! Congratulations on your trip!
Trivia Man
Spectacular, thanks. A friend of mine did some trekking in nepal years ago and described a talus slope like that. He recounted rocks from washer sized up to RV size. As a young and fit experienced climber he bounded down at top speed. His description was exhilarating. Plan ahead a few leaps because when you land the rock usually shifts at least a little. And just cross your fingers you hit one stable enough to rest on occasionally.
MCat
I’m just astonished that you made it through all those mountains and valleys. As eclare says, my legs hurt just thinking about your trek. Thanks so much for sharing this with us.
pieceofpeace
Talus rock (slides) makes me wonder how it was formed from its beginnings. What incredible sights you experienced on this trip, along with the daunting footwork at times. Did you manage any moonlit night viewing of this area?
While long ago backpacking in the Sierras, I miss the mix of solitude, beauty and being immersed in natural landsapes these pictures reflect. Thanks for sharing. Hoping you have more.
cope
What a wonderful story and collection of pictures, thank you. Though well past being able to do a trek like this, I did enough in my exuberant youth to have memories of similar adventures reignited. Thanks again.
terraformer
I feel dumb for asking, but what does “TKH” mean?
Scout211
That’s the person’s nym who posted the OTR today. It’s not a dumb question because the nym is stuck right there in middle of the title and looks like it could be a reference to something in the post. But if you look at past OTR threads, the person’s nym is always there in the middle of title.
Scout211
Thank you for the great photos and descriptions of your backpacking trip through the Southern Sierras. Back when we hiked and backpacked regularly, our stomping ground was the Carson pass area because that was the closest drive from where we lived. It’s always nice to see other areas of the Sierras. Hiking above the tree line is always an amazing experience.
Ronno2018
Sidewalks here in Rome are a bit uneven but nothing like what you experienced. I survived an hour walk to the Vatican the other morning though!
TKH
@terraformer: just my initials
way2blue
Good grief. What an expedition. Thanks for sharing all the challenging details. Yikes indeed.
I’ve been trying to understand where you hiked in relation to time I spent with family & friends at Muir Trail Ranch. Which is about 5 miles east of Florence Lake (you cross by ferry). The ranch is on the JMT and people cache supplies in a shed there—to pick up on their way through. We rode horses up to Sadie Keyes Lakes one day. Still quite southwest of your trek—in more lush landscapes. Beautiful country to be sure. I *think* I did an OTR piece on our Muir Trail trip years back.
TKH
@way2blue: Muir Trail Ranch is WNW from Bishop Pass. I went over Bishop Pass and then immediately turned South, so I was in effect moving away from the ranch. Where I joined the JMT is two or three days hike South from the ranch.
I am in Utah right now setting up my next hike and I don’t have the CA maps on my phone, so I can’t be all that specific.
The unexpected difficulties at Mt. Baxter boil down to different definitions of what “scree” means. To me that’s rocks of roughly softball size, to the originator of the route it obviously includes much bigger caliber rocks. An 800 ft climb of scree I can do easily, 800 ft climb over talus is a different beast, to me.