In the past I have hiked Roper’s Sierra High Route (SHR), a largely off-trail route from Roads End in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park in CA to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport on the East side of the Sierra.
There is a cousin of the SHR, called the Southern Sierra High Route (SoSHR), of much later vintage. It was first described in 2014 by Alan Dixon and Don Wilson. Alan has published a guide and map set that is available for free (adventurealan.com). The route starts at the South Lake TH near Bishop in the 395 corridor and then goes through Dusy Basin, across Knapsack Pass, Potluck Pass, and Cirque Col to the Barrett Lakes and from there over Mather Pass to the Upper Basin. This stretch you go the other way when you are on the SHR (provided you go South to North, as I had done). Hiking the SoSHR South from Upper Basin you then follow the John Muir Trail (JMT) across Pinchot Pass and Glenn Pass. Shortly thereafter the SoSHR leaves the trail and goes x-country.
In summer ‘24 I attempted the SoSHR, starting in in Bishop with the expectation to go over Mt. Whitney and to end up at Cottonwood lakes near Lone Pine on the 395 corridor East of the Sierra. It did not work out at all like I had planned and I got my sorry butt handed to me, but it was a very instructive experience for one and, second, the scenery was simply spectacular. I am not sure when I am going to try again (So many trails, so little time don’t ya know!), so I’ll give you a taste of the country I passed through. Not only did I not complete the itinerary, I also screwed up in the permitting process and did not score a Whitney permit when I thought I had.
Part of why I failed to complete the route was that I assumed that since I had crossed Cirque Col, Knapsack Pass and Potluck Pass in a Northerly direction while on the SHR, I would have no difficulty going over these passes in a Southerly direction. Oh you sweet summer child! How completely wrong I was! All three passes have sets of ledges and ramps that you need to cobble together to get up or down. When you go up to a pass you can stand at the bottom, get a good look at the lay of the land and come up with a strategy how you are going to try getting up this thing. By contrast when you go down from the pass you have only limited visibility past the next ledge or, if you are lucky, past the one after that. As a result, it was rather slow progress for me on that first attempt and my hiking plan met with an ignominious fate on these first and familiar (NOT!) passes. I had given myself nine days and carried nine days’ worth of food, maxing out my bear canister. Next time I need to be much faster.
My first mistake was to not push up right against the border of the wilderness from South Lake TH, instead I found myself a pretty site close to a lake. Apart from the prettiness it was also not that high up (9800 ft) and I expected a good night’s sleep, probably the last one for a bit. Another 90 min would have gotten me to about 11500 ft. Coming from 50 ft above sea level, that’s a massive jump.
Evening at South Lake
At some point on the other side of Bishop Pass you leave the trail and go cross-country to Knapsack Pass. It is important to contour above the bottom of Dusy Basin as that is choked with willow and pushing one’s way through willow is slow and not much fun. Above the bottom there are willows as well, but if one is careful one can always find narrow seams of tundra to walk on without having to bushwhack. I remembered some waypoints pretty well and I found the gully to the top of the pass without much issue once I was back at the head of Dusy basin.
A look back into Dusy Basin while ascending Knapsack Pass
At the top of Knapsack Pass you reach solid slabs, but the other side is a giant talus field with a scree slope on the right (as you look towards Potluck Pass) that's kinda loose. I descended the scree slope since you see easily where you are going, which is not the case if you take the talus slope with its ledges and ramps.
At the bottom you hit the Barrett Lakes, or more precisely, one of them and you have to work up to the upper one from which you ascend to Potluck Pass via the "inconspicuous saddle" in Roper's description of the SHR.
From Potluck Pass I made my way to the outlet of the lake below Cirque pass, which I think is the easiest spot to get around the lake separating you from Cirque Pass itself. The ascent is fairly straightforward using ramps and ledges. On the North side of Cirque pass are two tarns, one of them I noticed to be teeming with life in the form of tiny orange crustaceans. At roughly 12k ft elevation they must have an excellent antioxidant system to survive the UV irradiance.
The descent from Cirque pass was more difficult for me than I remebered ther ascent to have been when I was on the SHR. The reason is that you have a much shorter line of sight on the descent than on the ascent. At the bottom, looking up, you see everything while going down you rarely get a view past the next ledge. It was an interesting and unexpected experience.
From the Palisades Lakes you join the JMT for a while over Mather Pass and through Upper Basin. After crossing the South Fork of the Kings River I made my way up to Lake Marjorie. I had read that this is a "must camp at" lake for JMT hikers and I therefore avoided it, a choice I regretted. When I passed by I did not see anyone camping there and it is a rather pretty setting.
Lake Marjorie from farther along the trail
After you have completed the steep descent you ramble through a wide glacial valley and then leave the JMT to head cross-country towards Colosseum Col. It's a bit intricate as the sight lines are short, but not technically difficult. When I reached the ascent to Colosseum Col in late afternoon, I found that the entire gully was covered in snow. Not knowing what it was going to be on the other side, I elected to camp below the pass at the bottom of the snow field and to tackle it fresh the next morning.
Morning light at
The ascent to the col in the morning was straightforward with microspikes. At the very top the gully was rather steep and I elected to take a somewhat circuitous route in order to avoid tackling the very steep part where the snow was icy.
The other side was completely thawed out and the descent to the old Sawmill Trail was without any issue.
I then made my way to Lake 10900, tanked up on water and started my way up to Mt. Baxter. From Lake 10900 I climbed up the ridge on the left (looking South) and found it easy once I got out of the tree and relatively straightforward while in the trees in the beginning. Eventually the ridge flattens out and you get the first view of "the gully" that you have to climb in order to get on the ridge that leads to the peak of Mt. Baxter.
The bottom of the gully is guarded by a very steep moraine with rocks (barely (?)) hanging on to each other. I did not dare to climb the rocks and made my way to the bottom of there gully by means of a hook to the right and then traversing the dirt slope. It was not fun, but without risk as far as I could see.
I started the gully at the bottom left (looking up), climbed until a steep slab forced me to the right, or so I felt. I uncomfortably transferred to the right and climbed there for a while until I was forced back to the left. One more switch to the right and I was at the top. I did not particularly care for this thing, but it looks worse than it is. It surely helped that I was solo. I would not want to be in there with multiple people climbing concurrently. The rocks are loose and once they get going, they gain speed quite rapidly. I was so pre-occupied that I did not take any pictures of the gully (I can't believe it!), with the exception of some Sky Pilots growing near the top of the gully close to the end.
From Alan's writeup I expected to find the ridge up to Mt. Baxter Peak to be a scree slope, but I would call it talus instead. It was slow work. Half way up I decided to bail across the Baxter flank to the ridge leading from the peak to Grasshopper Pass. Let's just say that, if anything, this contour was worse than the talus climb. But descending the ridge down to Grasshopper Pass was straightforward. I had planned on doing that anyway so that I could take a rest halfway down from Baxter Peak to Baxter Lake. I did not fancy the idea of taking Alan's route down the entire talus slope from the Southern ridge of Mt Baxter down to the tarn below.
I camped at the tarn, I was simply pooped, mostly mentally. Next morning I made my way down another talus slope from the tarn to Baxter Lake proper and then tried to follow the old and now abandoned Baxter Trail, with mixed success.
Baxter Lake
Importantly, though, I found it at the bottom where it takes a dogleg left and then climbs a ridge. I did not have that climb on my radar and without the trail I might have just improvised something that might have been a bit more complicated.
The climb ends soon and then you just contour high above the South Fork of Woods Creek, first through old-growth forest and then across a bare hillside where some rock slides have wiped out the trail. Eventually I just made my way cross-country in direction of Dollar Lake, crossing just before it.
By this time I was behind schedule and in order to catch up a little bit I elected not to make my way into 60 Lakes Basin and instead to pass by the Rae Lakes. My expectation was that it would be busy, but it was not at all. The only sign for their popularity were the bear boxes installed by the National Park. Pretty pretty, though
As I made my way into Vidette Meadow a storm blew through and instead of the "less than 0.1" " predicted by my weather app, it poured heavily and the wind was so fierce as the partially shred my tent, my good old Aeon Li, which, admittedly had been on its last legs anyway. I got thoroughly soaked and decided to bail to the Onion Valley TH via Kearsage Pass.
The morning was beautiful, no trace of the prior nights mayhem visible.
There are a few lessons here for the next time, whenever that may be. I need to push much harder in order to make it through with the amount of food I manage to carry. I need to camp below the gully below Baxter peak in order to name it over in one day.
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