Alex reaching the summit of Mt. Humphreys
We left Tucson early Saturday 8/14/2010 and drove via Parker, Needles, and Barstow from Tucson to Bishop. Because we were not entering a national park, we were able to pick up our permit from the night drop box. This was a deviation from my usual method of just getting a walk-in permit. Given our arrival after closing hours, this had significant advantages. Rules change every year though, and I don't think anything like this would be possible now.
After getting our permit, we drove to the campground in Rock Creek and spent the night. Our strategy was to spend the night before starting our trip at as high an elevation as possible to aid in altitude acclimatization. Rock Creek is over 9000 feet, and this worked well.
It isn't long before the mine is left behind and the trail arrives at Pine Lake, where we stopped to eat lunch and enjoy the views. Then we pushed on, determined to get over Pine Creek Pass (11150 feet) on our first day. This is a fair bit of work (the trailhead is at 7405 feet elevation), but reasonable for the energetic hiker. We crossed the pass and found a campsite on the north side of French Canyon.
As we were breaking camp, a horse packer dropped by and kindly asked if we had any trash that we might like him to carry out (we didn't). We then hiked to the trail junction in French Canyon, admiring views and wildflowers, and then made our way up the trail to the bench holding Elba, Moon, and L-Lakes. We thought of camping near L-Lake, but upon discovering a dead mule in the middle of a campsite near L-Lake, we retreated back to near Moon Lake and selected a nice camp spot.
Eric wanted to spend the afternoon fishing in the nearby lakes. Alex and I took off to explore Puppet Lake and Puppet Pass, in preparation for our attempt to climb Mt. Humphreys the next day. Puppet pass is an intimidating steep pile of large talus blocks, but we found it reasonable enough to ascend on the right side, and on the descent found a perhaps even better (and more frequently used) route on the far northeast side of the pass. Once at the top, we climbed up to the top of the peak to the northwest (peak 12225). This peak is quite impressive when viewed from L-Lake and offers a great view from the top. It is a straightorward walkup from Puppet Pass. In retrospect, if we had been a bit more energetic, we could have walked west from Puppet Pass and climbed Pilot Knob (12245), but we didn't.
During the night we discovered that we were not far enough away from the camp with the dead mule as nasty smells arrived at our campsite when the wind died down. A memorable night of the worst sort.
The terrain may look relatively flat on the topo map, but there is actually plenty of topography to find an efficient way to move around in. We passed gigantic Desolation Lake on the south and made our way up a rocky ridge (with superb views to the south of the Glacier Divide) heading for Humphreys Lakes. From here we were puzzled by the route description we had, and moved up onto the west face of Mt. Humphreys, entered a chute and made our way up to the notch where the real climbing starts. We clearly did not ascend the chute that most people use, but it worked out fine.
We (actually Alex carried it) were carrying an 80 foot climbing rope, and a selection of 3 or 4 climbing nuts. We used them all and found that we had barely enough gear to get us safely up the class 4 section, which was exactly what we intended. We soon were on top. This was a very satisfying summit in many ways. The views were superb, the climbing exciting and challenging, and above all, this was a summit that I have been interested in for almost 40 years. We were alone on the mountain.
It is worth pointing out that Mt. Humphrey's is rated class 4 by the easiest route (which was the one we used). This means that if you fall without a rope, you will die. Skilled climbers will climb class 4 without a rope, but this is most definitely not advised for anyone who is not absolutely sure of their ability to do so. I have done a lot of roped climbing, but had not been doing much prior to this trip and the class 4 made me uneasy -- so I did the sensible thing and had my son Alex lead the pitches.
A person with a full length rope might have done a couple of rappels to get down. With an 80 foot rope, we downclimbed the two pitches. This was entirely reasonable, and given the number of climbing accidents that occur when rappelling, probably even safer, and probably just as quick. We descended the same gully we had come up, even though we could see that most traffic went down a different way. Our gully was fine, had no particular hazards, and above all, the ski poles we use as hiking sticks were waiting for us near the bottom of the gully.
From here Alex picked the route back, and he did a fine job. Along the north side of Desolation Lake we stopped to talk to some fellows who were camping nearby and told them that we had climbed Mt. Humphreys. We told them we couldn't stay and talk any longer because we wanted to get back to our camp in French Canyon (shadows were already starting to get long). They looked at us in amazement, and asked, "Who are you? Bob Burd?", which I thought was a nice compliment.
Our goal was to get down Puppet Pass before dark, and we managed to do exactly that. It was indeed dark by the time we arrived back at camp. We had hoped to move camp away from the dead mule, but Eric (who had spent the day fishing and exploring the nearby lakes) had wisely decided not to move the camp until we got back, so we enjoyed another evening of putrid and vile smells.
Our agenda was an easy day after pushing hard the past two days. Our goal was to move our camp to Merriam Lake, on what promised to be a nice bench on the other side of French Canyon. We hiked cross country from Elba Lake to join the trail near the giant waterfall from Royce Lakes. We found a nice meadow further down French Canyon where we ate lunch and then continued down canyon to where we felt it prudent to begin the cross country ascent towards Merriam Lake. We found a suitable camp spot east of the lake, and since clouds had been building all day, rigged our tent for possible rain and relaxed a bit watching the clouds drift over the peaks.
I awoke before Alex and Eric, made coffee, and decided to go for a run up to Italy pass if I could get that far. I wanted to take a look at Granite Park and was feeling quite good, so I took off determined to run as much of the distance from our camp at 10400 feet to Italy Pass at 12400 as I could. This turned out to be the whole way, and everything went quite well and I was soon at the pass with even a few minutes to spare. Finally I was at another spot that I had only seen on maps for so many years and dreamed about. On the way down I was feeling good and ran past some people who said, "It's hard to feel tired seeing you go like that!". Comments like that make an old goat feel good. I got back to camp expecting Alex and Eric to be upset waiting for me, but Eric was still off fishing and Alex was glad for some time to just relax. We hiked out without any trouble and drove to near Lone Pine, camping at the Tuttle Creek BLM campground after getting a shower at the hostel in Lone Pine as well as getting some food.
The crowds on the Mount Whitney trail are quite a contrast to a day alone climbing Mount Humphreys or the remoteness of the Bear Lakes Basin. Roaming into the less visited corners of the Sierra is what I like.
Our starting pack weights were as follows:
Eric - 42 pounds 9 ounces Alex - 38 pounds 14 ounces Tom - 28 pounds 9 ouncesNote that Alex was carrying the rope and climbing gear, an extra 6 pounds, for which I thank him. It is nice to shift some of the load onto a willing strong son. On the other hand, I have been having trouble getting him to go with me lately, so I may need to rethink that. Eric thumbs his nose at this ultralight backpacking thing. He is fishing while Alex and I are climbing and roaming.
Our exit weights were as follows:
Eric - 32 pounds 10 ounces Alex - 31 pounds 9 ounces Tom - 20 pounds 0 ouncesSo, Eric seems to eat more than we do (about 10 pounds as compared to 8.5), but not a dramatic difference. My food worked out just right on this trip. I figure 6 days (5 days, plus 2 half days on each end), so my food consumption was 8.5/6 = 1.4 pounds per day. My current guideline is to carry 1.3 pounds per day, so this was close and just a bit over.
I was using my "Caldera Cone" alcohol stove setup on this trip. Light, quiet, and slow. Fine for August.
Photos were taken with my (now retired) Panasonic LX3 camera -- a point and shoot camera that gives decent results for a lightweight camera and captures raw images.
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