Pt 1: Sierra High Route - Thruhiking 200 miles through the High Sierra

it's the morning after our first night dylan and i have awoken to our sleeping bags covered in a nice thin sheet of ice it is the morning of august 27th it's 6 30 and dylan's here we're hopefully going to start this year a higher out this morning we've got like a four to five hour drive ahead of us and then hopefully some epic few hundred miles of trail we're all ready to go dude we're doing the sierra high route right now like what that's nutty catch me at 11 000 feet elevation though then talk to me see how excited i am so right now i'm dope i'm hyped so you just uh take it yep here we go sierra ira let's do it [Music] twin legs [Music] all right we're at about 10 000 feet um hoofing our way up to uh horse creek pass uh the trail's actually been pretty good so far we're starting to lose it now as we get up into all this talus but um walking's been good so far [Music] the sierra high route 195 miles of rocky spires granite monoliths pristine lakes and rugged passes all along one of the most beautiful ranges in the country it splits its distance about half time on trail and halftime off while running along the crest of the sierra nevada mountains needless to say it is epically difficult and epically beautiful the high route has captured my imagination for years but i've never been sure if i was up to it and as i embark on this trip i'm still not sure that i am luckily my long-term hiking partner dylan was just crazy enough to want to come along not only were we going to attempt the shr but we plan to tack on another 50 miles by adding an extension known as the south sierra high rep we've hiked together in the past but this was going to be our most ambitious trip yet by far our starting point was the northern terminus of the shr twin lakes california from there we were headed 240 miles to the southern reaches of the high sierras a trailhead called cottonwood lakes all right there's our first view of uh horse creek saddle up there horse creek bass it's going so good three hours in and we're almost to the top of uh almost five or six hundred feet to the top of a horse creek path just going super good all right we did it [Music] this is [Music] all right we made it to camp for the night that's camp right there i think that is virginia peak i'm almost certain that's virginia peak back there that's dylan and uh this is our view it's the morning after our first night dylan and i have awoken to our sleeping bags covered in a nice thin sheet of ice my backpack is all completely covered we're headed up there to stanion pass we're very cold and covered in ice and our tortillas are frozen solid but we're excited to get over there and feel the sun and then three hours later we'll hate the sun but sasha's life [Music] so here's our new view heading down that [Music] way our first challenge is the elevation we both live near sea level where the air is rich with oxygen but at 7000 feet effective oxygen drops by about 25 and at 12 000 feet it's about 60 percent of what it is by the ocean and we are feeling it both our legs and our lungs are heaving from the strain i hope we get over in under two hours two hours almost two hours and a french foreign legion had later we're finally making it to the top of sky pilot pass that is everywhere that we came from and wow it's beautiful we're glad to be moving on to other things um so this is not the past pass is up there it's a little bit deflating but we're gonna climb that and then descend a little bit and then there's a little lake and we're gonna have a long lunch at the lake and we're going to take all of our gear out of our packs so that uh it can all dry out from this morning's uh light freeze i just want to take a nap dylan let's take a nap so do i honestly neither of us slept great last night so off to it here we go it would take a few days for us to feel close to our c-level selves and we would never fully get there nonetheless we were loving it it's important to record this for posterity earlier today dylan took his highest elevation poop to date something like 10 400 feet yeah it's pretty high i just had lunch and it was delicious and flour tortillas are better than corn yes i'm tired this has been harder than i thought it would be i hope it oh i hope i rise the occasion we'll say that [Music] we're about to go wrap around that lake all the way up that thing it looks so steep we are both pretty used to hiking on trail with over 4 000 miles covered between us but while dylan at least has some off trail experience i don't have much at all to speak of and at the very start we're spending a lot of time off trail oh my god we're getting up there but man it is brutal um today is almost certainly the hardest day of hiking i've had my life and i've hiked quite a few days it has just been up and down you know over 500 feet of change at least probably over six or seven per mile totally off trail a lot of it on talus or a scree it's beautiful man it's so beautiful but boy is it hard look at that we gotta figure out how to get through that from being on trail you learn one thing mother nature doesn't like to spend too much time being flat you're either headed up or you're headed down and off trail that's even more the case this is steep where's dylan anyway down there good morning we struggled to acclimate to a starting average of 800 feet of vertical change per mile which is really steep if you're not a mountaineer that is and next was footing on trail someone has done a more less decent job of cutting a flat and consistent surface for you to walk on it's easy to stride out consistently find a balanced footing and sometimes even go on autopilot off trail isn't quite like that especially in the alpine every step can be tedious it can require balance and uneven pace and constant attention for me getting used to this strain was a real [Music] hurdle [Music] [Applause] [Music] so it's the morning of day three our only goal for the day is really to get as far past twilight meadows as we can um because you can't camp within like i think it's five miles of either side the trail looks like it's gonna get a little bit easier from here for the next 30 miles or so so that's a blessing because we have been pretty beat up all right dylan so we're done with all the elevation game to start how are you feeling oh god like close to you for it [Music] we made it to tioga road and uh tuolumne meadows now i just need to find the wrap over here somewhere [Music] is absurd just in the video it looks ridiculous um yeah we can see pretty much forever for most people the biggest leap into off-trail travel is navigation i've always had a knack for navigation but i wasn't sure that it was enough to go gallivanting into the off-trail back country with i found my stride with the topographical maps that i had built before the trip and dylan and i quickly fell into distinct roles i was the navigator outlining our general path over this ridge around that mountain shoulder to the valley floor you get it dylan was our trailblazer he would take the guidelines i gave and find our exact step-by-step route or a line we call it and pretty much that worked [Music] just broke off trail from i think it was iceberg pass trail now we're going cross country up to uh blue lake path a little ways to go but feeling good it's beautiful [Music] we made it to the peak to the summit what is this this is a pass but we made it to blue lake pass [Music] is the morning and we are cold but it's beautiful and exciting another day of awesomeness this could be great it wasn't windy last night but it's windy right now that's okay i'd rather have it that way than the other way around fist bump first boom glory let's do it [Music] uh [Music] that that is bonkers beautiful okay we're doing more scrambling much more still to go but wow [Music] [Music] [Music] guys i can't i can't even i can't even with this oh it's insane it's bunkers glacier pass right there so that's the sierra crest and that's where we've been headed all morning and we're gonna head down uh to the east side of the sierras uh from here i'm kind of bummed this passes over i've been having such a good time we did it glacier pass the sierra crest how are you feeling i feel pretty damn accomplished that was good stuff thankfully we didn't have to go up that giant snowfall that would have killed me [Music] hello there the minarets we are currently skirting cecil lake um and we're thankful that there's a cloud we had a great lunch we were down to one tortilla and a half each so we double stuffed with cheese and salami and kicker uh white cheddar cheez-its gotta get some crunch in there okay i don't know if i can do this without any hands okay that's not precarious at all okay maybe it's time to turn off the camera [Music] are we out of the woods yet after a few days in this stunning but difficult terrain our still untrained legs and unacclimated lungs were desperately looking forward to a rest our first resupply stop was 80 miles in mammoth lakes is a small outdoorsy town at nearly 8 000 feet nestled in the eastern sierras where great food kind people and mountain vibes can draw you in and just keep you forever i'd spend a zero day in mammoth lakes during my pct through hike and was excited to get back and dylan was equally as stoked for some hot food and a place to sit we couldn't get there fast enough we're like seven miles out from town we're very excited so we'll break break camp early tomorrow and get into town and stuff our faces and become lethargic it takes me back to my hiker trash days we're gonna smell so bad sitting in some cafe i can't wait it's dandy we're ready down day time day war on foot on town day things to sit on town day how do you get to sit on things that are made for sitting on which is the best thing ever still in a chair with a cushion now that is living high on the hog [Music] freaking go time

Channel: RelishHikes

Views: 4,347

Rating: 4.9633026 out of 5

Keywords: SHR, Sierra High Route

Id: u8gdPXvIJqE

Length: 20min 24sec (1224 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/dooflotchy]

This looks amazing! Did you have to reserve permits for this hike?