sierra nevada

This was initially supposed to be a trip to the high country in Yosemite, which I feel has been fighting me for a few years now. The one trip I made there successfully was in September of 2020, starting from Sunrise Lakes, and for 5 of the 6 days the wildfire smoke was heavy and the views...

Hello everyone. It's been a good minute since I've posted anything here so with my return and some free time in the winter I'm going to post some of my (bigger) trips of the year. This was an 8 day backpacking trip in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. This trip was excellent and I was...

After being laid up all summer with back problems I figured it would be a great idea to put in a 48 miler from Onion Valley to Whitney. Seemed like a good idea but having only been backpacking 3 times in the last 9 months mistakes were made. First, I was so worried about not having enough I way...

This one is not on our maps, but we learned about it from an excellent post on High Sierra Topix by BigTubs. And since we had a couple of days free, and we could get a campsite in Hodgdon Meadow, we decided to give it a try. On Thursday we left home for Napa, and the timing was right for...

On an invite from a good friend, I headed out to the Sierra Nevada for the first time in a few years. I was really excited for this one - the Sierra doesn't have quite the "wild" feeling of my usual trips in the GYE or Winds, but the sheer size and beauty of the scenery is hard to beat - and the...

This trip report ended up being way longer than I had anticipated it being. I tried to keep the number of photos down as well but if you do want to see more photos and read less text I've set up a Smugmug account recently and I've got a photo centric report over there. Here is the link to that...

Background Knowing that I was heading out to the Sierra at the end of June, on a whim I decided to look for last minute backpacking permits for the 4th of July weekend. Earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic Inyo NF had moved their permits to all online reservations, and I was able to grab the last...

Background Armed with a new hip and 2 months of obsessive training, I planned to test out my hip on one of my favorite big Sierra hikes, a loop through Evolution Basin and Darwin Canyon starting at Sabrina Lake and ending at North Lake. The route passes through some of the most prized terrain...

Just to the east of Yosemite lies the Hoover Wilderness. When they made Yosemite they probably grabbed as much land as they could without upsetting local landowners. Hoover Wilderness lies just outside Yosemite but it doesn't know it is not a national park. It has some national park worthy...

To my beloved BackCountryPost.. I apologize for my negligence. I haven’t been writing trip reports, nor able to keep up on viewing the beautiful reports that everyone else posts! Since I have been missing the experience of this site, very much, get ready for a long trip report. This summer...

Between Bishop and Lone Pine, California sits the small town of Big Pine. West of town is Big Pine Creek, draining some of the High Sierra snowmelt. The creek canyon gives access to many of the Sierras 14'ers, including the Palisades group. The Creek splits into a South fork and a North...

Hi, and thanks to everyone that provided information to make this trip possible for me. I get about a week a year to do a backpacking trip out west. We've only been at this a short time and we wanted to try some cross country travel, but nothing too nasty. And to get better at finding...

Intro The fabled Bear Lakes Basin has been on my to do list for several years. There's no easy way in between the mileage, elevation gain, and 12-13,000 foot passes. I decided to suck it up and do it as an overnighter. My original plan was to loop back over Feather Pass through French Canyon...

Since I was in Bishop on Sunday for a friend's bday party I took Monday off to take my fur niece, Pika, on a hike. I hadn't been up to Granite Park in a few years, so I took advantage of the cooler fall temps and foliage for a reunion. Route (out/back) Logistics Start/end: Pine Creek...

Sequoia/Kings Canyon NP Onion Valley Trailhead 8/1 - 8/8/18 (7 nights) Warning: this is long and probably has too many photos (mix of camera and cellphone) and definitely has too many details that most of you won't care about After a lot of backpacking in KY heat last summer, I decided that I...

Originally I had permits for a route in The Minarets area but the Lions fire kicked back up in activity and left me scrambling to find a new plan a week out. Conditions looked clear in SEKI and I remembered of a spot a friend had mentioned to me as one of the most spectacular spots in the range...

My nephew Daniel from Spain, his wife, and two of their friends had planned to visit us in California, and he had requested a camping trip to see Yosemite and, if possible a backpacking trip as well. The only challenge was that his schedule was a bit up in the air, and we couldn't count on...

This is a backpacking trip I completed with a friend along the High Sierra Trail from Crescent Meadow to the Whitney Portal back in August of 2012. It was an eight day trip of approximately 70 miles from west to east. The trip could easily be done in six or seven days, but we had an extremely...

Seeing how winter was going to end early (not sure it ever really started..), my friend and I decided to look for snow before it all melted. Seeing how Yosemite was looking dry and having gone to SEKI in the past week, we planned to check out the Eastern Sierra. With the NOAA data showing areas...

Mt Ritter and Banner had such big cliffs, throw in any lake called Iceberg, plus seeing photos of Minaret lakes - the combination had put the Ansel Adams Wilderness on my list years ago. I'm pretty fit, but this time the combination of miles, elevation gain, high elevation air, 43lbs with...