High Sierra Topix

My wife and I are looking to do a 3-4 day trip in early May. We are comfortable with XC and snow, so I would say Level 4 is our experience from the scale provided. We are comfortable throwing on crampons for sections of a trip as needed.

What terrain are you comfortable/uncomfortable with? All of the options below
- Class 1 terrain/trail hiking
- Class 2 terrain/pass/x-country
- Class 3 terrain/pass/x-country
- River crossings
- Snow travel

We are comfortable with longer miles (20+ per day), but given the time of year I assume we'll be encountering snow, so let's instead call it 12+ hour days.

Would prefer a loop, but if the shuttle isn't crazy we can probably make it work.

Anywhere in the Sierra is fine. We have a soft spot for trailheads on the Eastside, but I know those start at pretty high elevation. I would love to explore the whole Thousand Mile Lake area that time of year, when there are (presumably) less people, but I don't know how big of a lift that is. Would the best approach be from June Lake Road, or would you just walk Minaret Summit Rd (I assume it's not open yet that time of year?).

I also love Sabrina Basin, and I was thinking the Big Pine Creek trail could be interesting to try that time of year, but again I have no idea how crazy that is in early May.

Things are melting out fast on the east side. I did a backcountry ski tour at Convict Lake last weekend and we hiked along the bare trail on the south side of the lake (north aspect) to access it. Sounds like you love the east side but I would actually recommend looking up Wandering Daisy's early season Yosemite Valley posts. It's an absolutely spectacular time to be in the valley area with the waterfalls pumping, and if you're backpacking you won't see many people. You can hike all the way around the valley, or up the Merced as far as you can... It's maybe not as high mileage as you are looking for, but I really agree with WD that this is the best place to go in early May. Here and here are writeups from when I did a little early May Yosemite wandering. I mean....

View from Stanford Point by Maia Averett, on Flickr

The major snow problem is often post-hole conditions. Given that you often cannot avoid post-holes in the afternoon, a 12-mile day may be a bit optimistic. Micro-spikes should work for early AM ice. It may be counter intuitive, but the east side, farther south, has less snow in spite of higher elevations. The Thousand Island Lake area melts late. You can reach it from Rush Creek before Devils Postpile roads open. But it would be on a lot of snow. You probably could get up to Waugh Lake before you hit much snow. Probably two days in, two days out would be needed.

The biggest problem with Yosemite now is the permit mess. Read about this on another post just below this.

Anywhere east of the crest & south of Mammoth is going to require pretty minimal snow travel until you get up high. For example, the North Fork of Big Pine Creek trail is melted out to 3rd lake *today*. You can hike up to the south facing route to the summit of Tinemaha without snow gear. The desert side of the range, shockingly enough, gets less snow.

Or you could go to Yosemite because, well, obviously.

At this point of the year, if the snow is consolidated (no recent snow) then my major concern might be river crossings, depending on where you go.

Thank you all for the advice.

I was wondering if anyone has crossed Duck Pass (out of Lake Mary) that early in the year. The whole Silver Divide area south of there seems relatively lower elevation, if we can get over the pass.

I think it is too early. I did it July 17 2019 (high snow year 176%) and the snow gully that blocks the trail on the north side of Duck Lake was still very dangerous- I had to climb up and over it- not bad but a lot of extra elevation gain. Duck Pass itself had quite a bit of snow too.

Will the Lake Mary road even be open?

I think *late* May might be ok for Duck Pass this year but early May probably not. By late May the south side of the pass will likely be mostly melted out (except the gully) but the north side could present some problems, plus the road issue (which you could resolve with extra walking).

If you're really set on that area, I'd go west from the lakes basin over Mammoth Crest down to Reds, up Fish Creek until the snow gets to be too annoying. Plus that way you get to visit Iva Bell hot springs. Just make sure you take the higher trail up Sharktooth Creek to avoid the potentially uncrossable second crossing on Fish Creek. Some parts of the high trail might be flooded and swampy, near Johnson Meadow. I guess there's also the concern about where exactly the Creek Fire got to.

Or you could take the JMT from Reds and stay higher on the other side of the valley. There's a bridge over Fish Creek on the JMT east of Lake Virginia so no worries about crossing there.

You can always keep an eye on the snowmelt using the Mammoth summit cam. Here's a view towards the south from Mammoth taken just now.

Talimon wrote: ↑Sun Apr 11, 2021 10:08 pm Thank you all for the advice.

I was wondering if anyone has crossed Duck Pass (out of Lake Mary) that early in the year. The whole Silver Divide area south of there seems relatively lower elevation, if we can get over the pass.

The Silver divide isn't the spot to go to avoid snow. It may be a thousand feet or so lower in elevation, but it is also the first set of mountains storms hit when they come off the Pacific.

You say you have a soft spot for the east side, which has a lot of less snowy options. But you keep throwing out trip ideas in snowier parts of the range :P. Go to Big Pine Creek, or visit Cottonwood Lakes. That has a way better shot of being dry than trying to cross the crest in one of the snowiest parts of the range (near Mammoth).

And I mean, if you don't mind snow travel, then just go whenever? If you're bringing snowshoes and sharp pointy things, then just go where you want in the first place.

@maiathebee Was planning on hiking up to Duck Pass 5/14-16 going up Duck Pass Trail (have permits) thoughts on conditions? Was going to call ranger next week for road updates and potentially camp lower at like Barney than Pika if snow is an issue. Planning on microspikes, gaiters, polls/snow baskets but not sure yet. Appreciate your insight. Thanks!