The Tioga Road through Yosemite is the last road to cross the Sierra Crest for 250 miles, meaning that rather than moving back and forth from east side to west as I had been doing, I would have to decide which side of the mountains I would travel down. My decision was neither informed nor terribly considered, but I had a 50-50 chance and in choosing to head down the east slopes I definitely chose the right one, though I wouldn’t fully realize this until much later.
Here the eastern Sierra takes on a simplicity, development-wise. From each of the towns along the freeway - Tom's Place, Bishop, Big Pine, Independence, Lone Pine - a paved road runs steeply into the mountains, leading to reservoir/lakes, rustic lodges, pack stations, campgrounds, and trailheads. I found crowds to be surprisingly small. Backpacking is popular but fishing much more so. Trails run up to passes, but mostly to lakes. Trees are widely spaced and lovely. Ground is dusty and rocky, oftentimes granite and granite sand. No duff to speak of. Skies are blue when not smoky. Rain seems highly unlikely. Clouds don’t even seem likely.
Elevation is high. Trailheads are 8-10,000 feet, passes are 11-12,000, peaks are 12-14,000. Back in my Seattle living room I had identified a number of 10RT/4500’ hikes - not unusual dimensions on some of my Cascade hikes - that would allow me to bag a couple of the big Sierra Peaks. This was not to be. Even though the trails are not as steep as in the Cascades, between the elevation, the dryness and the total lack of shade, I found Sierra hiking to be more strenuous. And with no trees, views open up quickly if not immediately, and are thus as good from an unobstructed pass as from a peak a thousand or two feet higher, in my book. I would do no peak-bagging my first summer in the Sierras.
Rock Creek Road
Tom's Place is not very far down the interstate from Mammoth. Rock Creek Road is paved all the way to Rock Creek Lake, with lots of campgrounds along the way. I got an $18 site at 9400'!, the start of campgrounds running $17-20 consistently. Dispersed camping is not allowed. The only legal option is backpacking.
I was actually lucky to get my site. A guy was getting ready to leave and I asked him if I could claim it and he didn’t mind. Just before he left he told me the sad tale of why he was leaving. He had been hiking and had fallen and lost his car keys. A cautionary tale.
The campground was a little noisy for me that afternoon so I retreated to an adjacent day-use picnic area, and I spent a couple of lovely hours there reading in the shade along the creek. A little boy and two older sisters were running around, ostensibly playing tag but it looked more like hiding from the little brother to me. They were all bare-footed and negotiated the ground like they had wings.
Mono Pass (south)
Up to Mono Pass, my second Mono Pass of the month. Except for the elevation - to 12,040, a personal best (in fact I went even higher) - the hike was modest, even with a side-trip to Ruby Lake. Approaching the pass the entire landscape turns to a sandy granite - like the beach. In fact, one day it would be the beach except that it is going to end up in a reservoir instead. OK, a reservoir beach. The pass has a spare and surreal air to it, and ahead in the distance a small lake looked like a mirage but proved to be an actual lake - Summit Lake. No trees: all sand and boulders and blue sky and fluffy clouds. Some tufts of grass and flower. Lots of people. Horses?
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| Mono Pass |
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| Summit Lake |
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| Summit Lake |
The hike was roughly 9RT/2200'. In the Cascades I'd have been adding to that, but here I was sticking to the program. Elevation isn't just thin air. It's also high radiation and this hike has no shade. Plus the reflection off the sand. Or is it just that a week behind a desk in a dark office and then nights looking at photos creates a greater drive?
I spent a very slow Saturday in the shade at Rock Creek Lake, reading about trees and then about global warming. I had a beer and camped in the walk-in campground. I was the only one there and at midnight the wind picked up and it got a bit spooky. It was very dark.
Little Lakes Valley
On Sunday I hiked through Little Lakes Valley: A stroll in the country, really, past Heart, Box, and Long lakes, to Chickenfoot Lake before you know it. I had to go up to Morgan Pass (7.2RT/800’!/11,100’) to get any exercise at all. The pass is basically a pile of rocks, paling in comparison to Mono Pass. But a scramble up the north side is easy enough and yields great views. Can give a sense of why someone might name a lake "Chickenfoot", though I'd have probably gone with "Anvil". Also some very clean profiles of the rather stately 13,700’+ granite peaks across the basin. Backtrack to Gem Lakes on my descent.
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| Morgan Pass |
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| Chickenfoot Lake |
I was oblivious to the fact that the road to the Mosquito Flats parking lot once continued straight up this lovely valley, now protected inside the John Muir Wilderness, and rose to Morgan Pass before plunging down into the upper Morgan/Pine Creek headwaters, where the Union Carbide Company operated the Pine Creek Tungston Mine and Mill, the largest tungston mine in the United States, from 1938-1991. Up to 400 workers lived in the company town of Rovana. The road through Little Lakes Valley closed in the 1950s after a more direct road was built up the Pine Creek valley to the 11,000’ mine.
Then I read in the shade at the Rock Creek fishing area picnic table. It was positively luscious there in the mottled shade by the creek, aspen quivering. Cool enough, a hint of fall, that I could enjoy the mottled sun. It was Monday before Labor Day. Some people up here were vacationing.That night I pilfered a good night's sleep out in the woods, and for the first night in a while slept next to a rushing creek. And then a nearly perfect early morning by Rock Creek Lake, the wind a bit cool, sunlight slanting in front of me but not on me, the light superb.
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| Rock Creek Lake |
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