Southern Sierra High Route

TKH

The Baxter Lakes trail is abandoned and you have to find your own way through timberline country. If you are lucky you find the occasional cairn which shows that another lost soul has to have been there before and you are not alone in believing that this should be the way. It’s no guarantee, we may both be deluded.

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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.

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TKH

In the past I have made a few submissions to OTR on my hikes of Roper’s Sierra High Route (SHR), a largely off-trail route from Roads End in Sequoia National Park in CA to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport on the East side of the Sierra.

There is a cousin of the SHR, called the Southern Sierra High Route (SoSHR), of much later vintage. It was first described in 2014 by Alan Dixon and Don Wilson. Alan has published a guide and map set that is available for free (adventurealan.com). The route starts at the South Lake TH near Bishop in the 395 corridor and then goes through Dusy Basin, across Knapsack Pass, Potluck Pass, and Cirque Col to the Barrett Lakes and from there over Mather Pass to the Upper Basin. This stretch you go the other way when you are on the SHR (provided you go South to North, as I had done). Hiking the SoSHR South from Upper Basin you then follow the John Muir Trail (JMT) across Pinchot Pass and shortly thereafter the SoSHR leaves the trail and goes x-country.

In summer ‘24 I attempted the SoSHR, starting in in Bishop with the expectation to go over Mt. Whitney and to end up at Cottonwood lakes near Lone Pine on the 395 corridor East of the Sierra. It did not work out at all like I had planned and I got my sorry butt handed to me, but it was a very instructive experience for one and, second, the scenery was simply spectacular. I am not sure when I am going to try again (So many trails, so little time don’tya know!), so I’ll give you a taste of the country I passed through. Hopefully this will inspire you to get or stay in shape and make a trip out there. You do not have to go over Mt. Whitney. Just doing this section of the John Muir trail is worthwhile.

Part of my mistake was that I assumed that since I had crossed Cirque Col, Knapsack Pass and Potluck Pass in a Northerly direction while on the SHR, I would have no difficulty going over these passes in a Southerly direction. Oh you sweet summer child! How completely wrong I was! All three passes have sets of ledges and ramps that you need to cobble together to get up or down. When you go up to a pass you can stand at the bottom, get a good look at the lay of the land and come up with a strategy how you are going to try getting up this thing. By contrast when you go down from the pass you have only limited visibility past the next ledge or, if you are lucky, past the one after that. So it was rather slow progress for me on that first attempt and as a result my hiking plan met with an ignominious fate on these first and familiar (NOT!) passes. As part of the wilderness permit you have to carry a bear canister. Theses cans have limited volume and are heavy. You therefore can carry food for only a limited number of days. There is no option for resupply along the way without leaving the wilderness (which voids your permit). Because of the weight of the canister you can’t carry a second one either. So you need to plan your hike carefully and hike like hell!

 

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