Andrew Patterson posted a trip report from the High Sierra Trail, crossing the Sierra from Crescent Meadow to Whitney Portal.
Here's the text from his Facebook post:
Quote:
Hi everyone, I finished the High Sierra Trail yesterday and wanted to get some info on the trail out there. Sorry no pictures yet, my camera battery is dead and won't be charged until I get my vehicle from the west side and drive home. But here's a day by day breakdown of some of what I encountered.
Gear: ice axe, black diamond contact crampons, trail runners, Tom Harrison Whitney high country map, compass, gps w/cal topo maps.
June 15th Crescent Meadows to Bearpaw Meadows: -Mehreten creek and the others passable in the early afternoon, had to go upstream a little ways for a couple of them.
June 16th Bearpaw Meadow to near Precipice Lake: -the tunnel above Hamilton lake right before the avalanche chute was passable with crampons and ice axe at the ready. I wouldn't have felt comfortable with micro spikes. -trail buried in snow shortly after the tunnel; made a steep, tiring traverse w/ crampons and ice axe towards precipice lake. -precipice lake and its little neighbor totally frozen, but about 1/4 mi short of precipice lake there is a rock outcropping with room for a couple tents.
June 17th Precipice Lake to Morraine Lake: -snow nice and firm in the morning going up over kaweah gap. On the other side of gap, totally snow covered from 9 lakes basin down to tree line. Decent walking snow with some sun cups. -crossed big arroyo creek far upstream from the treeline where the map says to cross; by the time the creek hits the tree line it is raging. -found trail again around junction with little five lakes trail and had it until around 10200'. Mostly cross country up on the chagoopa plateau until I got down near morraine lake, which is totally free of snow and nice for camping.
June 18th Morraine Lake to Junction Meadow -from Morraine Lake to where the trail switchbacks down into Kern canyon I had to do a lot of cross country because there were just tons of dead trees covering the trail; easier to go around than play hurdles with a pack. -The crossings of Funston creek down the switchbacks are scary - not as fast as others, but no room for error. -The Kern Canyon is wild, beautiful, and not to be trifled with. The river itself is absolutely raging; once you pass the hot springs, the crossings of Rock Creek, Whitney Creek, and Wallace creek are deep and the water looks as fast in places as the Kern river itself. I crossed most of these by finding a way over on not-totally-confidence-inspiring logs. I had to camp next to Wallace creek and cross it at 0530 the next morning; the water had lowered just enough then for me to get a foothold to climb on a big log. -a lot of the trail is under water and I was wading much of the day. On either side of the big crossings there's like 20-50 yards of calf deep water, and tons of debris. -the trail in this section has a ton of dead trees, logs, and other debris, and is completely washed out in one section, so I spent a lot of time climbing and going up and around stuff.
June 19th Junction Meadow to Crabtree Ranger Station -the crossing of Wright Creek before the Junction with the PCT was totally impassable - a raging waterfall over the trail down into Wallace Creek. I climbed north up the boulders about 1/2 mile to the meadow up top which was super strenuous. I crossed the first fork easily but the second was stil raging, eventually I found a log and found my way to the PCT. the whole detour took around 2 hours. -most of the PCT was snow covered and there weren't actually many PcT footprints to follow, so most of this stretch was cross country including some strenuous climbing up steep snowy hills. -The backcountry ranger is there; some of the PCTers were talking to her.
June 20th Crabtree RS to Whitney summit to Outpost Camp -enough people have probably posted about Whitney but it was an easy ascent, nice snow and easily identifiable paths carved by all the PCT'ers summitting from the west side. Had a great glissade down the chute.
Here's his picture of Kern Hot Springs and the Kern River. That large boulder next to the fence is usually high and dry out of the water, and there is a warm pool beside/below it to relax in.
thank you so much for posting your friend's trip report--it is very helpful.
I am hiking the HST this July from the 9-14th. The lingering snowpack and recent heat wave has me rather concerned regarding steep snow, avalanche risk and stream crossings at lower elevation.
Would you be able to post any photos that your friend took during his trip? Particularly of the steep snow conditions between the lower Hamilton Lake and Precipice Lake.
I am hoping that an ice axe will not be necessary in two weeks time, and that enough of the trail will be uncovered by then--I do not have much snow experience.
I am hiking the HST this July from the 9-14th. The lingering snowpack and recent heat wave has me rather concerned regarding steep snow, avalanche risk and stream crossings at lower elevation.
Would you be able to post any photos that your friend took during his trip? Particularly of the steep snow conditions between the lower Hamilton Lake and Precipice Lake.
I am hoping that an ice axe will not be necessary in two weeks time, and that enough of the trail will be uncovered by then--I do not have much snow experience.
TrailKrum, I've left Andrew P a request asking if he has any pictures.
As for the tunnel and chute above Hamilton Lake, your best option is to watch for trip reports, and call the SeKi wilderness permit rangers. They should have day-by-day conditions reports. Conditions of that spot July 10 will be questionable.
Ask here closer to that date, and I'll see what I can find.
Here's Andrew Patterson's picture. This chute will probably take over a month to melt out.
Andrew's caption: "The tunnel above Hamilton lake 6/16/17 seen from the east side. This dude had all the right gear and was practicing traversing across; his buddies didn't have gear so they turned back to Hamilton."
Thanks a lot for the pic and description, Steve (and Andrew)!
New ice axe is on its way--there's no way around it this July, I guess. The chute in question doesn't seem very wide, so I will chop nice steps into it if hasn't already been done by the time we get there. I don't think the trail will be very busy this year, stark change from the JMT last year.
It isn't extremely wide. But there is no end to it below if someone slips.
You might also carry ~something~ for your feet. The later it gets in the summer, the more "ice-like" it gets. So you might be chopping steps in what could seem like a block of ice.
I've always wondered why someone doesn't shovel a nice foot-wide path across that thing -- when it is more like snow.
I have Hillsound Trail Crampons that I use to winter-hike out East in the Whites. Would those be enough? Or would I need something more aggressive for side-hilling to avoid roll-out?
If there already are steps in the snow, microspikes should be ok, but I'm not sure how many folks will have hiked over Kaweah gap since Andrew was first there.
