One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: March 26, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1987_0808_Grays,Torreys.htm)
(A
Fourteener
trip report.)
Wednesday, August 12: After three days of HP business meetings in Cupertino, I caught an evening flight to Las Vegas to attempt hiking White Mountain Peak and then Mount Whitney. It was about a hundred miles less getting to the White Mountains / Owens Valley area of California from there than driving from the San Francisco area through Yosemite... And it was wide-open desert driving.
Thanks to the business trip, it was convenient and inexpensive starting my long-awaited climbing expedition to some California high peaks. Of course I had to carry a lot more luggage than necessary -- not even including a backpack. I picked the only two Class 1 Fourteeners in the state for my first climbing foray in it to that height!
Thursday, August 13: I took my time traversing the ~280 miles from Las Vegas, through Beatty, west over Lida Summit, Nevada, up to Westgard Pass, California, then north on the long road past Shulman Grove and Patriarch Grove in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. The area was maintained by Inyo National Forest. It was the home of at least 22 ancient (at least 4000-year-old) bristlecone pine trees.
There was a 10 mile paved road to Shulman Grove. This offered a small visitor center and two trails, the 1/2 mile Discovery Trail past Pine Alpha, which I enjoyed, and the 4.5 mile Methuselah Trail past the oldest known living thing on Earth, the 4714-year-old Methuselah Tree. I didn't have time for the latter trail on this trip. I continued 12 miles north on a winding, twisty, up-and-down dirt road along the crest of the White Mountain Range to Patriarch Grove.
After leaving Shulman Grove I saw not another soul until on the way back the next day. The road was a bit rough but good enough for my rental car. I roamed around the 1/2 mile Patriarch Trail just before sunset in the deep shadow of nearby Sheep Mountain. The pines here were larger, younger, and grew higher than those elsewhere in ABCPF. The largest known bristlecone pine was the Patriarch. Its grove was one mile beyond a junction in the main road.
I took the other fork north another 4.6 miles on a marginal 2WD road, pausing to watch a gorgeous sunset, to a locked gate at 11650'. The gate was right at a low and narrow point on the ridge crest. I camped out here next to the rental car on a grassy flat.
Friday, August 14: This morning at 0300 the alarm went off... Groan. I did not delay, for sunrise was only three hours away. I started up the road past the gate at 0330.
The waning moon was high and bright enough that I didn't need a flashlight at all this morning. But it was dim enough that I saw a large number of meteors from the Perseid shower, which was also waning. The trail (road) was so smooth for first the couple of miles that I could walk along with my head up watching the sky full of stars!
At 0445 I reached the University of California White Mountain Research Station below Mount Barcroft. This had to be why the decent road was closed, to give the researchers peace and quiet. Well early in the morning it sure was peaceful. Not even a light on in any of the many ramshackle buildings on a large flat... I mosied through.
There was an observatory building at 12720+'. Then the trail dropped about 200' slowly across huge meadows... Eerie in the dark, cold winds, silence, many stars. It was a long time to get there, to the black silhouette of the peak itself looming in shadows. White Mountain was a desert peak, bigger and farther away than it seemed, with no way to judge scale.
I started uphill as the sky brightened in the east. At 12800' I cut off the road because I saw the next (and last) saddle ahead at 13040+'. I traversed to it crossing a mile at least on rock and tundra at 0550, avoiding a couple of hundred feet back up and down on the continuing road. Beyond the saddle I rushed northwest up the flank of the peak to about 13400' to catch the sunrise at 0602.
The knife-edge of the horizon was actually a distant cloud-deck just one sun-width high. A red globe appeared, then broke free suddenly. The pink-above-purple shadow of the Earth descended to meet the huge line of the Sierras that were 30 miles away at the nearest. They burst out pink in mere seconds.
I continued, cold, at 0630. The rest of the climb was a slow grind up rotten rock and chips to the sedimentary summit of White Mountain Peak at 0711. If I'd taken the jeep road the whole way I guess it would be 7.5 miles. But the direct route, where there was usually a trace of trail, must have been somewhat shorter.
I found the top to be largish and flat, with room to park about 10 vehicles. The summit was raped in the name of science. There was an old stone building, locked tight, surrounded by metal and wood debris.
It was 28 degrees F and very windy. I took shelter behind the building and stayed for an hour and a half. The summit itself was depressing but the view was awesome. I looked across the Owens Valley west to the entire east face of the Sierras rising 10000' above it. The range stretched across a third of the horizon.
Five miles north was Boundary Peak, the highest point in Nevada. East were low ranges disappearing into haze. Telescope Peak, 11049', overlooking Death Valley was 120 miles south. I could not positively identify it, but I saw something in the right place.
I started straight down off the peak at 0846. Twenty minutes later I visited the south sub-peak. The area was a riot of bare rock colors. While the main peak was harsh orange with white snow on its flanks, the sub-peak was jet black, mostly from desert varnish. There was green and yellow tundra farther down.
After a straight shot to the saddle I proceeded up an older roadtrace to rejoin the jeep road. As it dropped and turned again I left it to go about two miles due south across a huge, barren tundra meadow. Mostly I was on rock and grit, rather desolate. It took "forever" to cross it on the opposite side of the shallow ridge from the road, back to the Barcroft Station. Then I hoofed down to the locked gate at 1149 (8:19 round trip).
The mountain was a long but easy one. I spent 3:41 going up a total of about 2840', and down in 3:03 (with about 200' of necessary gain). In no hurry, after a long stop at Shulman Grove I drove the 27 miles back to Westgard Pass. I found myself in Big Pine, 13 fun, steep, winding miles later, at 1530. And eight miles north of town and one mile west of the highway I found Keough's Hot Springs... Old, run-down, $5, and worth it for a shave, shower, and soak!
At 1740 I stopped in Big Pine again for laundry and dinner. Finally at 1945 I picked a spot at Goodale Creek NFS campground, just below the wall of the Sierras, surrounded by sand and sagebrush, and crashed for the night... Resting up for my epic stroll up Mount Whitney starting the next afternoon.
(Next trip report: 1987_0815-17_MountWhitney.htm)