Fresh off our excellent Western States 100 experiences, we gathered gear, moved to a campground near Bishop, and almost immediately started up the trail toward the Sierra High Route. I'm so glad I had the foresight to collect much of our backpacking stuff well before the race, because there wasn't much time to do it afterward.
Quite frankly, if anyone but me had planned such a quick turnaround between racing and hiking, I might have punched them in the throat (tm Robyn). With no one else to blame, I had to suck it up and get walking.
The good news - we really appreciated the change of pace, the quiet calm, and the company of a couple awesome friends for the next week and a half. Nice decompression opportunity.
The challenge - for about 2-3 days I was way slower than normal walking uphill with a backpack on my back. Happily, no one seemed to mind waiting for me, and also happily, my legs recovered nicely and soon were back to their peppy selves.
Stoked to get back in the mountains with our SHR buddies, Robyn and Cathy!
This scenery is top of the list for why we keep coming back to the Sierras:
We headed up the trail toward Bishop Pass to begin our third SHR section (out of 5 total). Back in the wilderness!
Taking pictures of Cathy taking pictures:
Flowers! Early July is very much on the early side for us to be here, and we were rewarded with a plethora of beautiful blooms. The downside was a plethora of mosquitoes, but since I don't have pictures of them, my memories skew toward "flowers!"
We might have gotten across this creek with dry shoes:
Hi Robyn, isn't this great?
Flowers!
Climbing above treeline:
John seems pretty happy among the rocks:
Lovely place for a snack break - and there's snow, so it must be summertime in the Beard world:
Bishop Pass, almost to 12,000 feet, a solid climb for day 1:
It has been a while since I've seen a "summit pose" from John:
A short way down the other side, we found an excellent place to set up camp in Dusy Basin. In general, we like to camp as high up as possible (more wind, fewer bugs) and we were happy to locate this spot before dropping down too far:
Day 1 haiku:
Back on . SHR (sung like "Back in the USSR" except with fewer syllables)
Lovely section for day 1
Fabulous campsite!
The next morning we descended just a bit more to join the actual Sierra High Route (so that haiku is a tad misleading). From that spot, the SHR follows trails for quite a few miles, and that was our task for the day.
At the start of a big drop into Leconte Canyon - I think the water will beat us to the bottom:
More dueling picture-taking, on a sagging footbridge:
I couldn't get enough of watching the creek cartwheel down giant granite slabs through the trees:
Tree hug!
Headnet selfie with the beautiful tree:
I could sit here all day:
But there's miles to go... we found the John Muir Trail at the bottom of the canyon and started a long, gradual climb to the north:
We brought along copies of relevant pages from Roper's SHR book and were continually entertained by his writing. I believe this section of trail was created from enthusiastic dynamiting by young lads way back when:
Following the Middle Fork of the Kings River up a long valley:
Robyn and Cathy had previously done this section of the JMT when it was more difficult (snow, high water crossings) and we were glad this time was much tamer. Still, no choice but to wade multiple times:
With an occasional snowfield:
Still climbing, oh my, that's a long day.
Helen Lake had a bit of snow remaining - and yes, the water was dang cold:
The high point of the afternoon - Muir Pass with a stone hut:
Lots of snow - but way less than in 2023, so we were not complaining:
Thank you, Muir Pass, for the photogenic hut!
We were relieved to finish the climb, now we needed to find a place to camp. Initially we didn't find anything promising, just rocks and slopes everywhere. We queried a group hiking toward us and they told us there were good options around Wanda Lake up ahead. Thank you, folks!
Over the next rise we spotted the big lake and walked over to check it out - success! Time for supper.
Day 2 haiku:
Big tree and cartwheels
Long, hard, wet, snow, squishy climb
To Wanda to camp!
Enjoying our picturesque site as we packed up the next morning (although the number of mosquitoes already awake and buzzing around us was a bit perplexing):
Once in a great while, my little camera does something amazing like this:
The first part of day 3 was a stroll through Evolution Basin, and it was as wonderful as promised:
Even the water crossings were pretty:
Soon it was time to leave the JMT and set off on another SHR adventure. This was a new one, a long traverse along a hillside high above Evolution Valley. We did our best to follow the instructions and stay between a couple target elevation lines. Some of it was easy travel:
A lot of it was a puzzle. We would reach an obstacle and try to figure out whether it would be better to climb up or down? For a traverse, there sure was a lot of elevation change in our path. John did some scouting, but mostly we would forge ahead and hope for the best. At least the scenery was great!
Enjoying a break way above most other hikers:
There was some scrambling, some bushwhacking, some steep uphill hauls, some little creek crossings, some willows, some slightly slippery slopes, and occasionally some fun rock walking:
Eventually we got ourselves up to the lake at 11,092', phew, those were some slow off-trail miles, but we did it! We were surprised to see a group of fishermen across the way (there's no easy/obvious way to this location). They called out a greeting and we waved, but we were too pooped to go chat.
Perhaps our least excellent campsite of the trip, mostly due to mosquitoes and damp ground, but you can't beat the view:
Day 3 haiku:
Evolution rocks!
Traverse up and traverse down
It's all off trail now
