sierra traverse
“As with all worthy adventures, they were only successful because of trickery and luck.”
Suddenly I’m gripped with panic—Did I remember my spork? Why on Earth would anyone load up this much stuff for a so-called vacation? There’s just too many small pieces. At the airport I heaved my 120 liter duffel bag onto the scale: 50.0 lbs. The airline employee and I stared at the scale, both of us expecting it to change its mind. The numbers held. I swore to Grayson the luggage on my next trip would be limited to a book and swimming trunks. Though we planned to move with alpine speed, the logistics of a traverse are pure expedition-style chaos. This was old school. Sitting at the gate, I think back to when a proper expedition included a cook, pack animals, and glacier-glasses. These days it’s all google maps, dehydrated food, and carbon fiber skis. Our plan was to hike, ski, and bike our way from the East side of the Sierra to the west. We would conclude by picking up Grayson’s van in Fresno and driving it back to Boulder, stopping along the way to ride our bikes.
We started on the Eastern slope, south of Mammoth. We hiked into a snowed-in campsite in the rock creek area, a beautiful high elevation trailhead. With the place to ourselves, we ate dinner and slept under the clear skies. Our traverse began at 2:00am the next day under a suspiciously bright moon. We needed to get over the steep pass below Bear Spire before the intense summer sun warmed the snowpack. Ever before sunrise, the melt was obvious. Every notch and depression in the trail hosted flowing water. Before we had hiked more than a few miles our first creek crossing had us nervously walking over a thin ice bridge. After one thousand or so feet of climbing we found consistent enough snow cover to strap our skis on and start skinning, which we quickly used to ski ourselves halfway into the wrong drainage.
My first time in the high sierra rewarded us with spectacular views. The range of light delivered the brilliant color I had only known prior through the writing it has inspired. The granite is much less weathered than most places in the rockies. Huge slabs are dissected by only the occasional crack. I’m convinced this is what makes the peaks seem so protected and invincible. Before setting off we were told the story of Orland Bartholomew, who skied 280 miles in the Sierra, in midwinter 1929. He also claimed the first winter ascent of Mt. Whitney during the trip. Supposedly, his only cooking equipment was a cast-iron frying pan.
We reached our high point of around 13,300 feet just as the snowpack became too warm to easily skin. The howling winds kept us from overstaying our welcome on the knife edge ridge between Inyo and Fresno counties, so we quickly transitioned and made great turns down and into the basin. After cruising the skin out of the Lake Italy basin we descended down to the Emerald Lakes area. We stopped on a rock and immediately argued over siting our campsite. Grayson argued for a glorious sunrise instagram photo; I argued for not being struck by lightning in an incredibly exposed alpine basin. Does he not know that those good looking people don’t actually sleep with their tent pitched on an iceberg? Within a few hours the flashing of lightning and rolling thunder over the peaks ended our debate.
The crux of the entire trip rested on our being able to cross Mono Creek from the so-called “second recess” down to a John Muir Trail connector, and back down to our waiting bicycles. Mono Creek was totally ripping. We scouted our planned crossing, and found it completely submerged under the whitewater. Our bail plan involved bushwacking along the opposite bank, or returning back to Emerald lakes and skiing another pass to the West. Either involved an extra day. Before committing to a plan we decided to ditch our packs and hike a little further upstream, where we found a suitable (though not ideal) crossing. Luckily, Grayson was poised to take a good photo if anything went wrong.
In another stroke of good luck, two fishermen were anchored on the far end of Lake Edison when we appeared. They offered to give us a ride to the campground where our bikes were stashed, saving us five miles of hiking. Under the threat of another storm we quickly motored across the lake. We spent the next several hours filling our bike bags and strapping the gear to our frames. The campground had a small store, used mostly by JMT thru-hikers, and we were somewhat of spectacle with our gear strewn across several tables. When we finally hit the road, I tried to play it cool as we pedaled away, but the weight of our hundred-plus pound bikes was not giving me confidence about the rolling portion of the traverse.
After a night camping near Mono Hot Springs, we were ready for the final push involving some 2500 feet of climbing to the top of Kaiser Pass. We woke early and made good time on the incline, leaving an extended descent back to Huntington lake, our ending point. Our lucky streak held and we cruised down to the shores as our brakes struggled against gravity and fully loaded bikes. With little route planning and haphazard preparation, we left the door wide open for an adventure—even an epic—what we ended up with was fun.
Whiskey is for drinking and water is for pointing at.