TR: Shepherd Pass to Whitney Portal 6/22 - 6/24

[jokismo]

Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/KMz5LGbeEcmoCQSg6

This was my second trip in the Sierras with my girlfriend. We both had no experience before our first trip last year and dove into it with a three day trip over Baxter Pass in mid July of last year. They were the only permits we could find that were available, and we did have confidence in our toughness, so we went for it. It was pretty brutal with dangerous stream crossings and the snow obscuring the trail in many sections toward the top. I got altitude sickness and couldn't do any camp chores the first night. We scrapped our itinerary, barely making it to the top of the pass at day 2 and heading back down, hoping to do the stream crossings out on day 3 in the early morning when they were less raging (they weren't). However our lasting takeaway was the absolute beauty of that canyon and a hard to describe experience that we attributed to the remoteness of it all (we saw one group of people on the way out, hi Orbitor!)

So this year I set about planning some new trips, this time earlier and with permits. We took a snow skills course in April from Sierra Mountain Center to prepare us for terrain that we could not properly deal with the year before. My girlfriend and I did a day hike of Whitney last year in September, but storm clouds had rolled in while at the summit and we had booked it down the mountain, not really being able to take it all in. I knew she wanted to return and so our first trip was set as a trip in Shepherd Pass, exiting Whitney. My father made me learn orienteering growing up so I was confident in finding my way off trail, and that sounded like a great way to go about another remote experience in the Sierras.

Looking at a topo map and the HST passes the route I came up with was: Shepherd Pass > Camp near pass or right over pass depending on condition of snow on pass > Rockwell Pass > XC through the Wright Lakes and Wallace Lake areas > See how the time goes, had a couple camp options but try to get to crabtree > summit and out.

I arranged a shuttle with Paul from East Side Sierra Shuttle and we were good to go. TR Follows.

Day 1:
Our shuttle dropped us off at the stock trailhead around 10AM. It was a hot day, but we were feeling pretty good. I was a little worried about the stream crossings after last year, but information I was able to find here and elsewhere seemed to say that Symmes Creek was not bad even at peak flow. However this would remain on my mind until we got to the first crossing which was supposed to be near the hiker trailhead. We slogged through the hot desert, and after about a mile merged with the hiker trailhead. Soon we got to Symmes Creek, which was not raging at all and cross-able without even getting the feet wet. Also no mosquitoes! Fantastic, trip was going amazingly well. There was not much shade to speak of and as we trudged up the switchbacks. We joked about never seeing anything besides grouses and marmots in the Sierras, and immediately one ran out of the bushes near our path. We got to the saddle and were still in good spirits as we were greeted with a change of scenery descending now into Shepherd Creek canyon. Morale started to fade around the section where we were ascending the part of the trail washed out by the mudslide. The new switchbacks there were completely exposed, and the long day walking upwards in the sun was taking a toll on us. We agreed to ditch our plan to get over the pass, but to try to get to the Pothole, which seemed like the last water source on the map. We slogged it in to the Pothole around 6. Mosquitoes were pretty heavy and biting. I chatted with the one other group that was there, they advised me to go up the snow slope if i had the gear since the switchbacks were in bad condition. We ate dinner in the tent to escape the mosquitoes and tried to sleep early. It was not very successful due to not being acclimated.

Day 2:
Woke up right around daybreak, didn't get much sleep but morale was high. Mosquitoes were annoying but now were not biting. We broke camp and beat it up the trail. As we made it around 300 feet further on, we realized there was a much better campsite out on the granite that had an unobstructed view of the valley, and still not so far from Shepherd Creek. Noted for future usage. As we approached the pass, we were greeted with the sight of some sort of carcasses littering the bottom portion of the pass. I recalled reading about mule deer falling to their death during their migration. There were at least 15-20 visible carcasses, and the smell was pretty bad. We quickly pushed pass this section and got the the area where we had decided to put on our snow gear. The snow was a bit firmer than I would have liked, making progress a bit slower but we steadily made it up the slope. Two guys eventually passed us going up the switchbacks, and after talking to them we decided to opt for that instead. There were some really loose sections but nothing too sketchy, and after traversing the snow field once at the top we were on our way over the pass. We spent awhile chatting with the guys who passed us on the switchbacks, they were climbing Tyndall and Williamson.

Back to our plan, we scouted the terrain extending from Tyndall down towards where Rockwell Pass would be. I couldn't really make out the detail of the terrain on the satellite images but it looked like we may be able to traverse on the ridge to avoid coming back up to Rockwell Pass from the trail, so the plan was to do so if the terrain looked ok in person. It didn't look bad, so we started traversing that way, probably around 11800. It was easy going, and we moved along enjoying the scenery until we got close to the bend in the ridgeline. Here what had been smooth broken up rock started turning into a looser talus field. We hit a snowpatch which had been hidden from view. It was too steep to pass without gearing up and the talus field beyond did not look inviting so we decided to descend and re-approach. Morale was low as we descended the loose talus field. After descending a couple hundred field the terrain evened out and we made it to the lakes below Rockwell Pass. After evaluating our overall progress, we made the decision to scrap our plan and just book it down the JMT to Guitar Lake.

Down the JMT we went, and soon we realized that what we had overestimated our ability to 'book it down the trail' due to the amount of ups and downs. Our plan to get to Guitar Lake was soon revised to Crabtree Ranger Station. Morale was subzero as we made it there around 7 and hastily set up camp. The sun went down while we were eating our dinner.

Day 3:
Sun was up and so were we, and we finally got some good sleep. Morale was good, how quickly the human mind can eradicate useless garbage! We made our way up the trail, in awe of the beauty of the scenery opening up towards Guitar Lake. We made it up rather quickly to the JMT Junction where we dropped a bunch of our gear and booked it to the summit. I felt great having acclimated for two nights. Soon we were at the summit. We talked a bit about our struggles over the last few days and of putting this knowledge towards future trips. We lounged about for awhile, taking in the views. When we felt we were hitting the cutoff for making it down before dark, we headed out. (We ended up chatting with some people on the way down and most definitely did not make it down before dark.) McDonalds was closed, but Carls Jr at the Shell station was open so we did not expire on the side of the road in Lone Pine.

Some takeaways:
XC travel takes much longer than I thought
Could have avoided getting stuck at the crappy scree slope if I wasn't focused on trying to traverse up high to get to the pass, need to work on route-finding thought process
Grateful to be able to explore this beautiful wilderness, can't wait to go back

[bobby49]

On Day Three, you did not drop a bunch of your gear at Trail Crest. You dropped it at the last JMT trail junction. If you had gone up to Trail Crest to drop it before going to the summit, that would have been stupid.

[gregodorizzi]

I quite enjoyed that TR. Thanks for posting. It's not much different from some of my own misadventrues. What I've learned from these moments makes trips that go reasonably well seem even better. On balance, it seems your trip was a success, even if the route along the way did not go to plan.

[rightstar76]

Grateful to be able to explore this beautiful wilderness, can't wait to go back

Excellent takeaway!

Really like that summit photo.

[happycamper0313]

I took a mountaineering and snow travel course a couple weeks ago with Eastern Sierra Mountain Guides for the same reason: last year I got stuck in some sketchy snow conditions up in Thousand Island lake area and wanted to avoid that this year.

With the conditions this year, I can't really put any of the instruction into practice!

Great TR and photos. Thanks for sharing!

[cgundersen]

Ok, so you guys have now done a couple of the hardest eastside entries in the Sierra; maybe it's time for a Piute, or Kearsarge or Duck? Anyway, I'm sure just about everyone on this forum can empathize with the ups and downs you experienced physically & emotionally. The ups always lure you back! cg

[Hobbes]

Ok, so you guys have now done a couple of the hardest eastside entries in the Sierra; maybe it's time for a Piute, or Kearsarge or Duck.

Cam, you took the words right out of my mouth! Now, what to do for an encore? Even Taboose or Sawmill might seem tame at this point. LOL

Maybe the SHR - before tackling the JMT? Just kidding you guys. Great trip report - you might find 'normal' trips easy & relaxing in comparison.

[SSSdave]

A key to efficient cross country routes is prior to hiking, carefully analyze topographic maps versus during a hike making decisions on what can be seen visually. And once on a route sized up, THEN tweak your actual path to what you see visually. Doing so you would have noted per map above that leaving the trail at 3520 meters after passing the marshy section then heading southwest directly at the saddle was the obvious trivial class 1 route.

Rockwell1.jpg

[jokismo]

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah I definitely fell victim to 'hey that looks good over there' syndrome. And indeed we seem to have fallen into the 'tackle the worst passes on the east side' rabbit hole (of which we've hit the bottom?). I did have reason to choose Shepherd since I wanted to explore those basins, should have planned for at least another day though. However just to put a wrap on our east side brutality tour we are taking a trip up George Creek next week! haha.
It's tough trying to fit things into a weekend warrior schedule, but we are learning. We have some trips planned later in the season of lesser brutal entry, looking forward to taking it a bit more easy then.

[maverick]

If you thought Baxter and Shepherd were difficult, then you will love George.