r/Highpointers

Hi all, I'm hoping to get one more HP in before calling it a season, and was looking at King's Peak around the 18th of September.

Has anyone hiked it at this time of year? What kind of weather should I expect? I know snow is a possibility, will microspikes do it or will I need crampons and an ice ax?

Thanks!

This past weekend, I attempted Granite Peak in MT via SW Ramp, got within 200 vertical feet of the summit, but couldn't figure out how to proceed after trying for an hour. This failure was 3 days after bad luck on Rainier in WA, the 3rd HP I failed to reach of the 14 planned during my 5-week road trip around the country, and the first one of my own making. I am posting a detailed description below to inform others planning to go via SW Ramp. I previously posted on Eagles Peak in MN, the first failure on this trip, and will be posting on Rainier eventually.

The road to the upper Lady of the Lakes trailhead is fairly rough and would be rather problematic for a Prius and such, but is quite manageable for a RAV4, Outback, etc. There is nice camping in the woods next to both parking lots. The lower lot is close to the main road, so there is a lot of noise from passing cars there. The upper one is very quiet, but is more likely to be visited by a grizzly.

After driving from Bozeman, I started from the upper lot a bit after 10:30am on Saturday towards Aero Lakes. The trail is gentle until a very steep climb to a rock slide leading to the lower Aero Lake. From there on, it is pretty much all rock, except between the two Aero Lakes, but these rocks are not nearly as bad as along the Sky Top Lakes. The descent from the pass between the upper Aero Lake and the Sky Top Lakes is very steep, with most of the lower half covered in snow, but it is bypassable on the right. Descending well to the left, beyond the big lake with an island closest to the pass, would likely make more sense once the snow patch there melts, possibly by next weekend. I arrived at that lake a little before 4:30pm just as a hail storm was starting and camped there, right next to a small stream; o/w I would have continued on to the next lake up (the last one which is not covered with snow and has nice grassy spots just above it).

I left for the peak at 5:40am on Sunday as it was starting to get light. After nearly continuous and rough boulder hopping, I arrived at the bottom of the tongue, which is now snow free. The bottom portion of the tongue is very steep and is the worst in terms of the scree sliding down. It ends with a huge boulder blocking the way, which can be easily bypassed well on the left; it is also easier to climb there for awhile than in the tongue. I tried to take SW Ramp as soon as I saw it, but couldn't see a way to continue soon after. As I turned to go back and exited the ramp, I saw two cairns leading to another entrance to the ramp a little higher up. There was again a tricky spot early on, but it was manageable. So go for the second entrance to the ramp.

Soon after there was an even worse spot, which had to be bypassed just to the right with only a small foothold and a small handhold near the top; going further to the right would have placed one over a cliff dropoff. Going down was possible via butt sliding, fortunately. There was a small piece of rope a bit higher up doing absolutely nothing. Further up, there was another, very useful rope over a tricky spot. As there was a bit of snow on approaching it, I put on my microspikes. I kept them on until arriving at the third rope, 200 vertical feet below the summit, as there were lots of snow patches and plenty of loose dirt. I could barely make it up the third rope and then down. Once up it, I found the path blocked by a huge boulder and saw no way of continuing further. So I climbed down the rope and tried for an hour to look for another way, having heard that this rope was not placed over the easiest path. Some approaches on the left looked borderline promising, but I couldn't see myself doing any of them. Could someone who has done SW Ramp explain what to do around the rope 200 vertical feet below the summit? Does this rope predate the boulder blocking the path above the rope? The rope is quite worn out.

I had no trouble moving up the tongue or the ramp between the tricky spots. I was really surprised how steep the ramp and the bottom of the tongue were and how loose the rocks there were when going down. It seems the microspikes really helped in the ramp, and in retrospect I should have used them on the bottom part of the tongue as well. It was very difficult and slow going down, especially without hiking poles. I normally hike with them, but they are needed to set up my tent as well, so I left my campsite without them. Had I thought about this before leaving my car, I would have brought a second set of poles. The poles would have been hugely helpful on the way up and even more so on the way down, for someone proficient with them. I got back to my campsite at 4pm, after being hit by a hail shower and then rain shower, below the tongue fortunately.

The route from the lower Sky Top Lake to the peak is completely shielded from the sun in the morning and was very cold, with quite a bit of wind. Fortunately, I brought a pair of Grease Monkey gloves from Walmart ($8 for a pack of 8), a pair of 3M Firm Grip thinsulate gloves from Home Depot (around $10 4.5 years ago), and a pair of  Wedze SNB 500 double mittens from Decathlon ($20 4.5 years ago). I wore the mittens for most of the way to the tongue, when I switched to the thinsulate gloves. These got soaked in the ramp from all the melting snow (there were a lot of shallow snow patches, which might be gone by next weekend, along with all the runoff), at which point I switched to the Grease Monkey gloves.

On the way back to my car on Monday,  I took the Sky Top Creek approach. The boulder hopping along the lakes was absolutely awful, and I had to cross two snow fields for which I put on my microspikes. It took me 3 hours and 15 minutes to reach the bottom of Lone Elk Lake, from which there is an actual trail back to the upper parking lot, but with lots of bumps along the way. It took me another 4 hours and 15 minutes to get back to my car, though this included about an hour of chatting with three different groups of hikers about my experience with Granite Peak. The first and the third groups consisted of three hikers headed for the peak. The second group was a couple. The man in that group had been part of a group of four that had been stopped by the third rope last year. Only his brother, an avid rock climber and a marine training other marines in mountaineering, ended up summiting by climbing the ridge to the right and crawling along it on all four. They did the hike at around the same time last year, but the ramp was completely dry then. 

I had expected and hoped to see other people climbing the peak over the weekend. On Saturday, I did pass one hiker around the Lady of the Lakes who was heading for the peak and planning to stop at the Upper Aero Lake that night, but I never saw him again. Just before I started descending from the third rope, I saw two guys in shorts and T-shirts descending from a crack well to the left of the ramp. They had ascended from the east side, but for some reason were descending toward Sky Top Lakes. One of them said that their descent was fine for ascending, ``just one class 5 move".

Without the snow fields and the chatting, the Sky Top Creek return would have likely taken me around 6 hours, slightly longer than the Aero Lakes approach on the way up. Those rocks along the Sky Top Lakes are just awful. The stream crossing are also easier along the Aero Lakes approach (and only two of them). If I were to try the SW Ramp approach again, I would still do the same circle. While I did not summit, I really enjoyed the beautiful area, both the woods and the open vistas.

We're planning to do Elbert end of next week. Two questions...

We'll have an airport rental "SUV" so wouldn't consider it a 4WD. Looking to see if we could avoid the full added 5 miles RT if we had to use the 2WD lot at South Elbert trailhead. Would the road up to Lily Pond (FR122) be doable? I see a few mentions of if, but it's not clear how far up until we'd find any pull-off options and if that would even same any mileage. Hiking through the ponds looks quite nice, though!

Alternately, we're considering the Southeast Ridge via Black Cloud. Parking and access are much simpler, with the obvious tradeoff of a considerably more difficult hike. Any thoughts on that route?

Does anyone have any relatively recent info on how the road to the queen canyon route up Boundary Peak is? I've been trying to figure out if my Outback will be fine but the conditions seem to vary wildly. Some people say that they made it just fine in a sedan and some say that they struggled in a lifted truck or jeep. TIA

Hi everyone! My friend and I will be hiking Mount Whitney this week of August. Do you have any advice on what clothing we should wear and what essentials we should bring?
Also, are there bears or other wildlife we should be aware of on the trail?
Any tips or recommendations for first-time Whitney hikers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I'm going to Granite at the start of September. I figure with the low snow year that the snow bridge might now be gone, but wanted to confirm. Hoping to ditch carrying an axe.