[pete_a]

From August 25th to September 4th, my wife and I took a shot at hiking the Sierra High route section that runs from Desolation Basin north 100 miles to Tuolumne Meadows. We hiked the John Muir Trail four years ago and it still ranks up there as one of the best trips we've ever done. We wanted to get back to the Sierras but knew there was much more to see than just another trip on the JMT. We read about Steve Roper's Sierra High Route and thought it sounded like an interesting adventure off the beaten path. After reading his book and various trip reports, we figured our daily average of 17 miles on the JMT would roughly be cut in half due to the 50 miles of off-trail travel we'd have over our 100 mile route. We also figured that fewer daily miles would allow us to actually have some nice afternoons enjoying the scenery rather than just pounding the trail from dawn to dusk as we'd done on the JMT. We both had some physical challenges along the way...a disc problem in my back gave me a rough time the first few days, and towards the end, we had to scrap the last 11 miles of off-trail travel around to backside of Banner to Vogelsang due to my wife's aching knees and blisters on her toes...we opted to hop on the JMT over Donahue Pass for an easier route to the car. We still really enjoyed the remote terrain and typically stable weather of the late summer in the Sierras. Some friends of our were also vacationing in Mammoth at the same time so they joined us for the first day and moved our car from Bishop to Tuolumne....way easier than the rental car/bus logistics of doing the JMT without any help. A long-winded write up of each day is available in the links below: Day 1 - North Lake to Desolation Basin Day 2 - Puppet Pass, Le Salle Lake Day 3 - Feather Basin, White Bear Pass, Lake Italy Day 4 - Gabot Pass, Mono Creek, Laurel Lake Day 5 - Big Horn Pass, Shout-of-Relief Pass, Lake Virginia Day 6 - Duck Lake, Deer Lakes, Mammoth Crest Day 7 - resupply at Reds Meadow, Superior Lake Day 8 - Minarets, Ritter, Banner Day 9 - Donahue Pass Day 10 - Lyell Canyon If you want to skip just to the pictures, they're all here: https://plus.google.com/photos/113589492689912715272/albums/6056410700978144001?banner=pwa

happy to be at the pass!

Day 2, up past Mesa Lake towards Puppet Pass

view south from Feather Pass

nearly at White Bear Pass, Mt. Hilgard in the distance

The first bit of White Bear Pass...slow but not too bad, just stay on route

looking south at Recess Peak from Laurel Lake

Duck Lake

above Minaret Lake, one reaches a 3rd class scramble to reach Cecille Lake. We met some friendly backpackers here who offer to haul our packs on their rope

Cecille Lake

more Minarets, and Iceberg Lake

Ritter and Banner

Nydiver Lakes

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Great pics! I tried to convince a friend of mine who is doing the JMT currently to do a slight detour so he could hit Iceberg/Cecile/Minaret lakes. SOOOOO much better than the alternative, but I don't think he went for my idea.

[Stella]

As someone who has thought of taking a leave of absence from work to hike/scramble the SHR, I love your trip report and photos. I'm envious of the portion you covered. Thanks for sharing.

[Gabigabs]

Great photos, enjoyed your write ups too. We just finished the JMT few weeks ago and are hoping to do the High Route in the future.

[cascadetraverser]

The SHR is amazing; enjoyed the great report. 10 days out there must have been so great. Amazing how uncrowded the HR is compared to the trail!

[ree]

I looked at all your pics on google plus... what an excellent trip!!! Tucking in Bodie too is so wonderful. Great you got people to shuttle your car so you could do a through hike. We did parts of your trip in two separate trips. That boulder hopping above Lake Italy to Upper Mills was quite strenuous... but what great views. Red Slate Mtn looks so interesting, to say nothing of Banner, Ritter, and the Minarets. Thanks for posting. Fun stuff.