Eastern Sierra - September 21-22, 2019

[lizolas]

Eastern Sierra

September 21-22, 2019

Activity	Time (Duration)	Mileage	Elevation Gain
Basin Mountain (turned at Horton Lake)	8:55 am - 1:25 pm (4:30)	8.5 mi	2,140’
Grouse Mountain (4th class this time)	2:15 pm - 5:45 pm (3:30)	3.3 mi	1,425’
Clouds Rest from Tenaya Lake (the far side)	10:35 am - 5:20 pm (6:45)	15.6 mi	3,280’

My plans really don’t ever like to work out as planned. What was supposed to be a trip to climb Matthes again turned into a hiking trip due to Joshua’s wrist injury. Which is fine, but I’ve now managed to go the entire summer without any actual preparation for the Saber Ridge trip I was supposed to be training for. Which now looks like it might get rained out anyway. We had several ideas for Eastern Sierra peaks easily (“easily”) accessible from Colin and Ellaine’s house, and I didn’t have any strong feelings about any of them. For Saturday we decided on Basin Mountain at Colin’s recommendation. It might have helped with the alpine starting if I hadn’t locked my keys in my car, but in my defense Joshua wasn’t ready when I arrived at the house anyway. After driving up a dirt road I would probably sooner hike than drive again, we arrived at the trailhead about 9 am. As Joshua took his time doing things with his camera (in preparation for a film-only Nepal trip) rather than getting started hiking, I realized I once again needed to learn to accept that pretty much nobody else has my sense of urgency in starting hikes early, and I should probably just let people enjoy life at their own pace.

Basin Mountain in the far left midground

We started up an obvious trail that was much milder than I’d expected it to be. I think most of the steep climbing comes after the lake. I had a GPS track downloaded, but it was easy to follow the trail up to Horton Lake. About half an hour after we started, I asked about a turn-around time when I realized, looking at the data from the GPX file I’d downloaded from Peakbagger, that we had very little chance of being back to the car by sundown at our current pace. We decided on “2:30 or whenever we get bored.” This was soon amended to, “Let’s just go to the lake and then turn around, get off the terrible part of the road in definite daylight, and do Grouse Mountain for Part II of today.”

Horton Lake

The Horton Lake area was beautiful, and we stopped to hang out at the lake and take some pictures before continuing. We considered climbing Peak 12,120 instead of Grouse Mountain, but I ruined Joshua’s aspirations with an excessive amount of concern. I didn’t think we were likely to summit that at our current pace either, and we still wanted to get the car down before dark. I’d only brought one liter of water, thinking we were going up a drainage with several more spots to refill on the way up. Joshua had put new SuperFeet insoles in his shoes and was complaining of foot pain because of them. So we headed back to the car (arriving at 1:30 pm), got it down the road with little difficulty (and no bent frame or punctured oil pan as far as I could tell) and stopped at what seemed to be a good place to start Grouse.

Amusingly, on the way down the trail, Joshua had stopped to look at the roads. After asking a few questions I determined that he’d had exactly the same thought regarding the Buttermilks parking area as a starting point for Grouse. “I can read a topo! I can use a map! That is CLEARLY not the closest place to start from the road!” I’d done that last time, and while it hadn’t been a huge problem, starting closer to the foot of the mountain means crossing the creek in a much deeper part of the gully with loose, sandy, heavily vegetated sides. Crossing closer to the parking lot is much easier although it results in about a half hour walk to the start of the climbing. We left the car at 2:15 in search of an easy crossing and quickly found a rock ramp that didn’t even require a jump across the water. From there we headed straight across the flat open area to the toe of the slope.

After considering a few other options, we decided to take a route roughly the way I’d gone previously. I warned that I’d encountered some easy 5th moves, but it was entirely possible that I’d gotten myself somewhere unnecessary and those moves weren’t mandatory if you sought out only 3rd class. I got briefly concerned when Joshua wanted to head for some sand. He was having no trouble running up steep sand, and I’m just not that good at sprinting. We soon made our way back to the rocks, though, continuing up mostly 3rd with possibly a bit of 4th. Some people seem to care a lot about the distinctions between 3rd, 4th, and low 5th. I don’t tend to pay that much attention, although at some point I’d love to flop a crash test dummy off of various stances to get an idea of how far a human body is actually likely to go on different terrain. This time there were no 5th class moves. I think last time I exited the chimney thing a different way that forced me to do more difficult climbing to get up from there. I did think I was about to die once, when a block I’d pulled on a bit to test moved when I actually hung my entire weight on it. I also had a foot slip that startled me but I don’t think I was actually about to die there.

Mini Oreo for a mini summit

We made our way to the summit where we found the register for some reason stored in a broken glass Ragu jar. With no actual foresight, I’d bought mini Oreos since they were the only ones on sale for a single package, and it turned out to be fitting that we’d gotten “mini Oreos for a mini summit.” After a bit of confusion and swearing that there was no way to die on the way down, I did eventually find the easy sandy walkoff after a bit of talus hopping at the very top. We quickly “skied” down the sandy broad gully in the middle of the mountain, then returned to flat walking, which I’m told is incredibly boring bushwhacking. I’m just happy whenever I’m in scrub and can easily see landmarks, and I don’t think it’s “bushwhacking” until you’re using your arms to push vegetation away more often than not.

The summit register

We considered a stream crossing earlier than the car, but looking down the steep, vegetated sides we decided to just continue to our original point. There we found a slightly different way across than the rock ramp we’d come in on, and we walked back on a small dam of logs with plenty of trees above to hold onto for support. We were back at the car at 5:45 while the sun was not yet down from the top of the sky, having taken 3.5 hours on an outing that Joshua had incredulously asked before we began how I managed to need over 3 hours to do the last time.

Sometime on the way to Horton Lake, Joshua had gotten the idea that perhaps Big Days in the Mountains are not actually his preferred type of activity, and instead he likes Big Days on Bikes. (I am exactly the opposite and have accepted that as much as I admired John’s feats of transcontinental cycling, I don’t like biking that much.) We decided that rather than try and likely abort mission on Conness on Sunday, we should pick a hike that would just be largely enjoyable and make for a moderate day. At first, on the hike back from Horton Lake, I’d suggested that we drive to the Valley (somehow trusting that we’d actually get going early enough) and do Clouds Rest. On the way back from Grouse, I was struck by the realization that I’d entirely forgotten about the other side of Clouds Rest. The trail that most people actually use when 120 is open starts from Tenaya Lake and is about 70% the distance of the trail from the Valley, with just 50% of the elevation gain, making it a much more casual option. While I disagree with Joshua’s assessment that the trail from the Valley is “an asshole” on account of I think there’s nothing wrong with the trail, he just doesn’t like long days hiking, doing it from Tenaya Lake seemed the better option, as it was both easier and right along our route home.

Tenaya Lake

By this point I was no longer delusional enough to think we’d get an early start -- especially since we weren’t even saying we were trying to get an early start for Sunday. I showed up at the house at 7:15 before Colin and Ellaine were even awake yet. Joshua was mostly ready but couldn’t find the tortillas. We left the house shortly after 8, arriving at the trailhead about 10:15. The trailhead was something I didn’t think enough about, since I chose the one at the far (east) side of Tenaya Lake when I could have driven to the near (west) side and cut the length of the hike by a little over a mile each way. I said it was “only two miles” to which Joshua pointed out “‘Only’ to you.” Oops. I’d mapped something on CalTopo to put on Gaia months prior when presumably I was trying to make the longest route possible from the Valley, and it hadn’t really occurred to me until we’d hiked to where we met the trail from the west side of the lake that I could have parked there instead.

Typical Yosemite style trail signs - most had mileage to multiple destinations listed.

We were asked to provide a detailed trip report, but I forgot to take as many pictures as I intended. However, everything is established, clearly signed trails. At every junction, simply follow the sign indicating Clouds Rest and you’ll eventually make it to the top.

Mini Oreos for a not quite so mini summit as yesterday

While Joshua repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with our pace, overall we weren’t making bad time. Our average (including breaks) was 26 minutes/mile. I think the main difference in how I’d have done it alone is that I probably wouldn’t have taken any breaks besides a short stop at the top which would have shaved off maybe 20-30 minutes each way. Plus the pace was probably my fault anyway, since I wouldn’t let him take hiking poles on account of his PT had explicitly told him not to.

We got back to the car at 5:20, which was about 45 minutes later than my estimate of “We’ll definitely be able to finish it in 6 hours.” We also missed the hours of operation for the ice cream place we intended to stop by in Escalon. Google indicated they were open til 9 pm, but they’d actually closed at 7. After a minor detour by a Coldstone in Manteca, we were back on our way, arriving in Mountain View about 10:15, putting me home in Sunnyvale just before 11.

I will never tire of this view

Lessons Learned:

• Sometimes a casual day out hiking is nice
• I don’t actually have any mental distinction between “easy day” and “moderate day”
• I evidently own a high(ish)-clearance 4WD vehicle just so Joshua can occasionally drive it where I’m too scared to.

Really just my beta photo of the possible North Ridge approach options on Basin