Sierra High Route: An Off-Trail Documentary

that does not bode well for us because we are headed in that direction [Music] all right it's adventure time we're still in the city so we're still wearing masks but soon we'll be out in the mountains and we will be free [Music] [Music] [Music] kind of scale is it calibrated i mean what kind of a terrible scale is this who's gonna fall 300 pounds so that's supposedly 35 pounds i weighed this at home it was 31.7 pounds today is tuesday july 21st 2020 and we're here in kings canyon national park at rhodes end now carl is somewhere i don't know where i think i've lost him already so this has the makings of a great adventure i found carl also read the sign dang looks like this guy was trying to ski the sierra higher up this is gonna be the 195 mile trek of the sierra high route we plan to do it in 14 days with a resupply halfway we're partially concerned that we'll get too hungry there's always a chance of you know rolling your ankle and risking injury um or like a bear might kidnap carl so we'll see so the plan today is to hike up the trail at 5000 vertical feet past grass lake pass and then we'll go over another pass and plan to camp at glacier lakes okay so why am i doing this hike well three years ago my brother and i did the john muir trail in 2019 i got to go back on the trail early season and do a section hike of it and the jmt's just such a wonderful trail but at some point i feel like you are looking for more challenging things well i could try to do the jmt a little bit faster i think these high routes are just so much more exciting you just feel more liberated i think this is a trip that's definitely a lot less of a stroll in the woods despite what it may look like because when my brother and i did the john muir trail we averaged 20 miles a day it's only 40 000 feet total of elevation gain on this trip while the mileage is similar it's about 200 miles we're gonna do sixty thousand feet of elevation gain not all of it is on trail either which actually makes it much harder because going down talus is energy sapping so we've come up 4 600 feet already it's noon we've got an exciting development we are here it's time to begin cross country we're gonna go off trail it's starting i'm tired right we're at the saddle we're about to get our first glimpse of grass lake yeah i've been wanting to do this trip for like 10 years so i'm really excited but looking up at our first like off trail pass starting to feel the weight of it all it's an easy day when you take a 50-minute lunch break and you still don't feel rushed to get to camp a nice and easy way to the pass over there [Music] all right first pass nice 30 something more to go right through that gap there let's go chris saddle look little tadpoles [Music] all right we made it to go crest saddle bam here we are there's a nice turn right on top of the saddle [Music] these slabs are so nice we're so lucky yeah it's really fast at some point it will be telus there are a ton of mosquitoes and they're all on carl right now carl why are we going uphill i thought we were done here on the state lakes trail and we are probably going to call it here we feel like it's not too smart to push too hard on this first day day one complete we're still alive i packed new shoulders for tomorrow yeah i'll probably swap these shoulders out for some new ones look what carl's having tonight chili yeah with brown rice yeah i'm doing my usual i'm doing stretches and uh safe from all these mosquitoes what a great day i think avoiding these mosquitoes is really just the icing on the cake we're gonna plan to get started at 6 30 tomorrow morning so i'll see you then good morning it's day two 5 30 in the morning i'll just leave pretty good off and on but [Music] oh it dropped down at 40 degrees last night [Music] navigation is easy navigating the forest is hard i think that we are we're right here now yeah [Music] hey carl is the winner great to pass yeah i think it counts sweet does great pass count yeah let's go down to it all right we're going down to great pass which is 200 feet down there which is so bizarre to go down to a pass carl long distance high five bam this one was really not worth high five because we didn't really do anything we're still clear and here we are about to go up and over white pass all right guys it's exactly noon and we just made it up white pass yes we're gonna take a lunch break here traverse to red pass and then a fun descent we are in the land of rocks this is the kind of sierra high route i was waiting for we're here on red pass nice next we have to go over uh frozen lake pass which is it's up there that is stunning deep blue hey carl how come we're not camping at marion lake tonight well that was plan a this morning then we got into this hole like maybe we'll go over this uh frozen lake pass and basically haven't decided basically we're gonna get there too soon shout out for that you all right well i found my ass for the first time don't worry i didn't get on video we have to appear cool watch this i'll give you guys a nice flake some things look at that it's just so blue holy crap this is like food coloring in water it's just wild do you think it's like this all the time or just like we're so lucky right now because this is amazing it's so blue oh i see the plaque all right i know this is getting old but gosh it is so blue i am so amazed this is one of the coolest lakes i've definitely seen this is to commemorate helen marion leconte so how many bugs are flying around me normally at this time i would expect to look down on my shoulders and see like five of them oh there's just one maybe the permethrin's doing something we came down red pass from over there [Music] that is frozen lake pass we will do that first thing in the morning couscous peel off with a little salmon steak oh that looks delicious it's 7 30 p.m i'm washed up i've eaten dinner it was windy outside and pretty cold and i'm gonna go to bed and try and get maybe 10 hours of sleep so i'll see you in the morning good morning it's day three we are gonna do frozen lake pass first thing in the morning but first i gotta do this [Music] all right we are embarking on one of the hardest passes of the sierra high route which is the frozen lake pass frozen lake pass is a great warm-up in the morning we're almost to the top and it's 7 26. just under an hour we're here in frozen lake pass nice good morning workout then we got to get down yeah it's just a little bit that's like steep at the beginning so this descent's really not that bad i've done uh worse on the yhr here i am with one pole even with one pole i'm willing to go down this with a camera in my hand and that just goes to show that either i'm really stupid or that it's not that bad it's not that bad [Music] jimmy says as he plummets to his death let me show you a look up where we came from it always looks bad but honestly this is still better than going down forester pass in the yhr but maybe it's just because i'm not alone gosh i love these giant boulders the giants house is so easy to walk on so when you look at it from afar we came down frozen lake pass which is that one it looks so sketch and yet it went carl and i have been joking about how easy the jmt is gonna be but i'm actually really stoked to see it again and to be on it three years come a long way i think where the gmt is now a bailout option for the sierra high route there's a moment on that rock did he die is he a warning to all the other marmots i mean there's a sunbathing spot it's a low snow year it's a very different view in 2017 when i came here in august there he is what a lucky guy gets a gorgeous view like this all right it's 10 40 in the morning we're four hours in we are at the top of mather pass nice job carl i don't know what number this is i forget this is pass number two for today i don't know about you carl but i really enjoyed this stroll uh lovely trail it was so nice so lovely a nice little break from thales [Music] we've been descending forever it's quite quite nice i'm gonna eat it on a trail carl just completed a major ford just kidding we are taking a break off the jmt we're gonna have lunch and then we'll be going off that way looks like i dropped a screw offers an excellent view south toward the jagged unnamed peaks west of mather pass this is the elegant way ladies this is fantastic you don't get quite a view like this from the gmt unfortunately so here we are in the basin looking up at cirque pass it looks great very sloppy it's 3 45 we're on top of surpass nice that was a big one it was a bit of everything we chose to do some class 3 but you don't have to and some slabs at the end there we might get rained on it's time to move storms coming in we're gonna make camp down at this lake here we're not gonna do potluck passes originally planned a beautiful place to have dinner [Music] this is a two and a half pound foam roller that we brought it's like 8 15 right now had a very big dinner took our time because we got here at like four o'clock and uh today was a really good day super fun we just like lounged around napped during the daytime meandered but meanwhile i'm gonna get some sleep so i'll catch you in the morning good morning friends it's day four and about 5 30 in the morning as you can see this is our routine now we're going up this thing we encounter two other hikers that we're in this basin but they're not doing the shr it's 7 23. we're here on top of potluck pass this was great here's a shot of north palisade for you guys that looks sweet oh does he not know how to fly oh he doesn't know how to fly but he knows how to rock hop like a champion i like long locks on the beach in the mountains all right check it out this is knapsack pass we've been moving for three hours bam we're seeing it for the first time wow gotta love slabs they're so great this is carl trying to get signal we've got a wee bit of talus here so at 11 12 a.m our day comes to an end we are on the trail look at that grand view behind me [Music] our off trail views were pretty spectacular but this is a pretty dang good view oh so stoked okay so we're on the trail but then uh we see slabs so should we follow the trail or should we do the slabs we found a huge juniper time for some class 2 action bam here we are in the current canyon wow it's more gorgeous than i remembered this is our lunch spot and i'm gonna go over into the creek and rinse myself off oh yeah so clean what a nice little meadow 321 it is starting to rain so there's lightning and thunder so we're gonna hang out here for a second let it pass by so just started hailing just as we were about to hit the trail and naturally when the weather goes south people band together in the wilderness we waited for a little bit and uh as you can see it's a little bit brighter up here and a little bit darker back there should be safe to go but we can always keep assessing we are so lucky we got rain while we're on the trail knock on wood hopefully we don't get any while we're off trail fuzzy antlers they're just grazing so it's 5 15 we are in this sheltered enclave campsite we're gonna hang out here cook some dinner and wait until the clouds blow over and it clears up all right check it out we're here at helen lake and mir pass is blue there we go there's mirror pass and well you can't see all the trail that we came up to get here but it's very circuitous as roper would say 7 10 p.m we are here on your pass this one was hard earned though way to wait out the storms yeah well we played it smart so there were people that were stuck in this lightning hunt we saw them on the way down and uh yeah that was not a good situation premier pass this is the highest point along the sierra high route where you will not see a single tree or shrub [Music] it's time to scout for a campsite but look at this alpine and look at evolution basin down there we found some established campsites next to the jmt it's been a long day but look at that view good morning it is day five saturday july 25th today we're looking forward to doing some off trail passes it'll be exciting [Music] that was a mouse there wasn't even anything here to eat okay it is 6 40. we've left camp we're headed back onto the jmt and the big pass for today is snow tongue pass this is where we're gonna go off trail it's always the forested parts that are actually the hardest ah gotta love the steep force that was probably person number one versus number two and person numbers come on barrier poop guys yeah bear come on bear your poop so this is why i use a compass folks because once you get to a certain point like we're at the very southern tip of this lake and it becomes insanely easy to realize snow tongue pass is that one and not that one it's the uphill man it's so cold right now just kidding it's freaking oven [Music] carl and i were talking earlier about how the both of us when we're tired and things are hard we like to crack jokes and smile did it oh my god nice oh yeah top of snow tongue pass came from over there and we're about to go down this thing which hopefully looks sketchy on camera because it does look sketchy in person too so here we are snow tongue pass and we're gonna go down that way all right so it's gonna go down all this loose stuff to there the idea is to not pull on any rocks that are loose and to just kind of slide like we did on frozen lake pass [Music] you can't even see carl but this should give you an idea of this is me holding a flat so this should give you an idea of the steepness that's similar to frozen like pass on this stuff but i think even a little steeper so i have a couple choices i can go down this um it's nicely i'm like shooting for these big rocks that one that one then over there i'm basically just kind of in a slide all the way down or i could go this way through some of the boulders that are actually more anchored so i think i'll go this way also carl's coming down the middle and so i told him i would be out of the fall line because you don't want to kick rocks down on your partner so i'll go this way because it's only 300 feet it's just spicy enough to enjoy oh there there it goes we did it and that is enough there's no time like the present [Music] so i saw this one uh rock that was loose and i decided to try and balance on it and then i went in the water so now i'm tile's hopping water tell us hopping all right quick break to take care of our feet carl has some sort of blister on the back of his heel i don't really have problems except for the fact that um it's wet and luckily the rubber is sticky because i went through all that talus with wet shoes also there's clouds over snow tongue pass right now well there used to be sun here that does not bode well for us because we are heading in that direction so we might have to sit this one out and wait until it blows over again what a beautiful view minus the storm clouds but look sunny so much sun on this side it could get to the point where we wait it out if we wait it out it'll get rained on the descent and that might be sketch alternatively we may have a window to go over [Music] all right we are going full speed the one benefit of all this is that it has really motivated us we think we can probably make it up in 20 25 minutes and then more importantly we can book it down before it starts to rain all right we did that in like 10 minutes or something we're on puppet pass great job we made it up here maximum effort because while clouds are brewing we're not gonna spend too much time we're gonna get down see all those dead trees that's us bushwhacking we knocked them all down but now we're here at pine creek all right we've set down our packs probably for the last time today the car looks so comfy okay it's 8 30 we are going to bed because we're going to get up at 4 30 tomorrow morning and the reason for that is because there are afternoon thunderstorms that have been happening recently and we don't want to be stuck on a path with lightning so we're trying to shift our schedule ahead to accommodate good morning it is 4 30 day six i'm using the headlamp for the first time on the trip it's clearly blinding me right now so i'm going to turn it off and get packed up it's almost 6 a.m and it is beautiful out we are hiking on the uh pine creek trail and then we'll be making a turn off soon and going off trail there's a person at merriam lake we have to be very careful not to scare the wildlife all right so we are going up feather pass right there oh look at that all right now smash it we're almost at feather pass and look behind us oh isn't that amazing feather pass 12 300 feet nice this was a very gorgeous climb and the descent doesn't look terrible tell us what you think about the past jimmy i think it's fantastic there's so much tellers yeah here's what i think you know it really rocked i like these general slopes i don't want to take them for granted here's the rat we're going to take we're going to go there go to bearpaw lake start traveling up go around and then we're in there and we shoot [Applause] algae in the snow check this out this is black bear lake is this not like the most magnificent place to camp you've ever seen sparkling blue water sandy camp sites rocks to jump off of and a little kiddies pool oh dude look at feather peak and that's feather pass right there in the middle the snow we came down that all right here we are at the pass technically the pass is down there but we're above the pass so that's even better right carl except that there's a cliff and we need to be over there lift time all right we are officially on white bear pass look at this view [Music] this is the north side of white bear pass and as you can see it's going to be a long descent so coming down white bear pass the reason roper recommends sticking on the north side is because you get these class 4 slabs so we are on this side much more gentle there's a decent amount of talus on the descent from white bear pass [Music] some might call it endless here we are at lake italy there we have gabit pass and a closer view of mount abbott and mount dade it is 1 53 p.m and we're on gabit pass look at this silty ice melt oh my god this is so lovely so uh basically it just got cloudy so now we're not too hot we dipped our hats in the water and then it kind of flattened out instead of being tallest there's no more towels until down there yeah and now like life is so great things stopped hurting too like we feel so bad this is so spongy but look it comes back it bounces back it's 4 24. feels like we've been going forever but we got a slog on downhill through all this really thick brush and trees but no good way down yeah this part really sucks from like lower mills lake down into the second recess is just awful okay we finally got out of that mess and that's got to be my low light for this trip we are on the mill creek trail in the second recess this is not a maintained trail but boy is it nice to be in the woods where you can actually see through the trees yeah we kind of rock top but i was gonna put my feet in anyway yeah it don't matter it's six o'clock right now which means we've been moving for 12 hours today because we got up and moved at 5 30 a.m and have taken less than 30 minutes of breaks cumulatively today my name's luke this is duncan we're walking north on the high road these are the only guys that we bumped into that are doing this here higher out northbound as well look at the campsite that we found i said that i would not have a fire unless somebody literally stacked wood right next to the fire pit and that's what happened so i think we might have some fire tonight all right we're glamping now good morning it is 6 a.m on day 7. we're gonna hike 10 miles out of mona pass trail and then resupply we're headed out to rockfeed campground to resupply because carl's mom happens to be camping there all right since we're on the trail and it's just easy cruising we are playing the pass game name the passes that we've passed and we counted 17. so in rapid succession we did cross lake pass goat crest saddle windy ridge great pass white pass red pass frozen leg pass mather pass cirque pass potluck pass knapsack pass mirror pass snow tongue pass puppet pass feather pass white bear pass and gavit pass [Music] it's 11 am and this is mono pass our resupply pass yeah stay past tomorrow same pass tomorrow [Music] look at that wow so apparently there's a fire here in little lakes valley like three days ago and everyone got evacuated we're meeting up with carl's mom right now hopefully we don't actually know where she is and she was supposed to be camping here for the week she probably got evacuated so we are here at mosquito flat carl's mom has not been able to make it in yet we're kind of puzzled we're just gonna hang out here and play in the water for a little bit and hope that we can meet up with her soon let's take a look at how this shoe is these are the merrell mqm flex 2. mqm stands for move quickly in the mountains so far they've seen half the high route bolted up well surprisingly well here we are with our resupply good morning we are resupplying here in the rock creek campground look at this [Music] today is day eight and thanks to the lovely hosts for having us with our resupply we are now back at the trailhead and about to get back on the high route it took us an hour and a half to get up to mona pass so here we are nice again duo the very sandy trail let's see how much sand i have in here oh yeah okay i'll check this out so carl and i just realized that we're doing about 40 miles just because of the way that logistics are working out and those 40 miles are on top of the high route all right so it's three and a half miles of laurel lake we're finally back on the sierra high route this is laura lake we'll be camping here tonight good morning it's day seven on the sierra high route day nine of the overall adventure it got pretty dewy there was a high humidity here near the lake our first task this morning is to climb up big horn pass so we are here at bighorn pass nice work took us about 50 minutes to get here and we're going to try and contour around and then go over shadow relief pass which is over there it's two hours since we left camp at laura lake and we're here on shadow relief pass see if we can cross over there and it clears up a little bit we are done all that bushwhacking and we're on the horse heaven trail going down to tui hall and then we'll pick up the jmt and head over to virginia lake it's a hot and sweaty climb up to purple lake but it's gorgeous check it out we're here at virginia lake virginia lake is such a beautiful lake michael and i did not get a stop here last time when we hiked the gmt because we were hoofing it but uh today i think we're gonna stop here and do a reset dry and have lunch and enjoy [Music] well after taking like a one and a half hour lunch we're back on the jmt trail dogs we're here at duck lake pass my phone is gonna freak out i've already got a bunch of messages [Music] midnight [Music] [Music] good morning it is day eight on the sierra high routes oh no why are we running okay so now we are officially lost in the woods so i think our strategy here is we are going to wander into the woods until we hit one of two trails we're trying to figure out the worst way to get into red's meadow all right our scouting of the sierra low route is complete we've determined that the trail is the best course of action delicious all right it's 1 10 p.m we have to go out into the sun um carl we've got a long ways to go to canada yeah believe me i've done it okay we're doing some bonus we're going to the top of devil's post pile because i've never been it is 2 40 p.m in the afternoon and it is officially slog time oh my god we finally hit this junction it took us forever here's a shot of superior lake uh hint it is not superior in any way i think the best thing about this lake is the fact that it leads us to nancy pass no offense lake carl has deemed this the worst place in the sierra high route it is official now look at all these freaking bugs bugs the water's warm the trail get here sucks on a positive note we're gonna go up over that pass and then everything will be better it's almost 6 p.m and we've made it to nancy pass oh look at mount ritter and banner peak right there so close wow even the rocks love us here [Music] good morning it is day 9 on the shr and day 11 of our trip we've got the alarm clock blaring in the background there that's just a bird and uh today we're gonna be playing around in the ritter range it's gonna be super [Music] fun we're in the early morning sun there's no breeze it's nice and toasty here we are at cecile lake and look at this view of mount ritter and banner peak so cool look we got all this talus but talus is easy and fun [Music] okay so carl almost died over by the creek he um stepped on something slippery and then his other foot caught something slippery and uh then he had a run towards a cliff to save himself how'd you feel about that just another day on the sierra high route so we're going to cut up through there there's a tarn up there and then we're going to go over white bark bass hot takes with jimmy jimmy what's been your favorite pass so far i think snow tongue was super fun and then we ended up in like this gorgeous meadow nice what was your favorite campsite i think yesterday was great i slept well yeah minaret like that was it was lovely what's uh your favorite piece of gear that you have with you i'm taking these shoes from merrell what a cool day last year my friend sam and i we were on the john muir trail it was all covered in snow most people took the pct which is uh on the ridge up there and then we decided to cut up a gully next to garnett lake all right we're here on whitebark pass nice more talus all right we're gonna go down the talus over to thousand island lake whether or not 1 000 islands actually exist proves immaterial for the name eloquently conveys the idea what do you think probably one of the most beautiful parts of the whole thing so many flowers water mountains got everything that's glacier lake pass and we're gonna go over there [Music] oh this is a beautiful lake so beautiful all right so this section behind me is about to get pretty tricky there's a bunch of class three ledges and it's a complex system so hopefully we can find the right route i think we'll be fine we've been doing pretty good so far um we just took the first one down that was the only class three thing and now we're just uh walking down apparently a lot easier than we thought it's a teeter-totter [Music] we have here the first of the two twin island lakes each lake has an island it's so cool our first real forward except for mono creek yeah we don't to like about the thigh this is what i've got for dinner mashed potatoes with salmon and this is free salmon that i got at red's meadow and we're sitting lakeside it's hard to beat this view [Music] good morning it is day 10 of the shr i didn't even set my alarm clock but it's 5 15 right now and it's time to get up we found ourselves at the lake we were shooting for and now we're gonna go over there behind that black bridge and then descend into bench canyon when you're off trail your off trail name is the food that you desire most and carl is pie and i'm beer i think we feel kind of bad there were three guys that were following us we decided to come down something that was fairly steep because we're comfortable with it and thought it'd be pretty fast and direct yeah it looks like they might have gone around oops so we think we're pretty good at route finding but sometimes it's more about going down the route you find then finding a good route easily you should go down on the right side of the canyon there instead we decided to traverse across past the willow choke thing to the ledges over here which was quite direct and fast for us but probably not great for anyone else yeah we were worried the group was gonna follow us good catch he just snatched it like smeagol that is forester peak we're gonna do blue lake pass which is right there it is 1109. we took our time and we're here on blue lake pass yosemite national park that way and a nice view of forester peak right there as some would say this is all right it's always interesting how you get these little micro pains first your knee hurts and your hamstring hurts and your feet hurt then your ankle hurts and then the cycle just repeats so we came down from probably that right there i'm fairly sure we're doing the sierra high route why are we so low here why are we going through a forest i'm kind of hoping something exciting and spicy is gonna happen like maybe carl will get mauled by a bear after miles and miles of forest we have a view we came from 9900 feet up to vokasang pass in 26 minutes we hoofed it nice today finally felt like a day on the high route where i had to go pretty deep it's because of the trail my feet are not having it but we made it here check it out we just watched the moon rise and there's jupiter right behind the moon good morning today is sunday august 2nd day 11 on the shr and it's hard to get out of bed this morning look at that we're looking at half dome so yosemite valley is that way we're here at tuolumne pass high five it's a pass if you come from the valley and uh basically once we get to twelve meadows then we're gonna go up towards gaylor lakes then go up and over mineshaft pass and then the east ridge of mount connis and then uh we'll be finding camping in one of the lakes north of that you know it's interesting how my perspective on time changes when i'm off trail time actually goes by pretty quickly because i'm totally engaged and trying to figure out where to go next and when i'm on trail all i have to do is look down and just keep walking yeah this is a pretty good section of the sierra low route we're meandering through the forest next to some cars all right we're about to do our road crossing wait carl watch it watch your foot watch your foot okay go forward is the car coming now go for it go for it run oh my god oh wow we are coming out of the forest and into a big open meadow this is so [Music] cool [Music] so [Music] it's 12 20 just in time for lunch we are here on top of mineshaft pass next this next section is going to be fun [Music] there's a grass in the rock right there you see it we made it to spuller lake we got one more lake up there and then it's the east bridge and then it gets cliffy and then it's a horrible towel shoot we are on the east ridge of mount connis nice work we are gonna try and figure out how to get down right now beautiful view and then sky pilot coal is right up ahead we're going down this we're gonna scramble up there go down and follow and then hop over to lakes [Music] all right so it's like 8 30 and it's been a long two weeks so i'm going to go to bed and it's gonna be a windy night probably because the entire tent is shaking uh but i've got my rain jacket on just to keep the drops out i will catch you guys in the morning good night well good morning today is day 12 of the shr i've just been having this crazy dream tonight just really bizarre but now it's time to get up and get ready to hike over skype had a call [Music] so [Music] [Music] we're here on skype pilot call and we have two more passes to go it's a fox running across the snow right there wow [Music] carl and i both feel like this is similarly difficult as frozen lake pass i went down this uh pretty steep dirt chute uh because the rocks were pretty unstable and uh then we're gonna be on ice for a little bit it's like all the passes we've done before have been training for this so skype call is a doozy so what'd you do today oh not much just walked across the glacier with no glacier protection tools pretty wild if you look back at it we've gone down like 200 feet well we wanted more talus and here we have more talus but this is the really crappy kind of palace where it's all messy and all different sorts of sizes and loose this is the kind of talus that you don't bring home to see your mom you didn't film any of that i filmed no talus oh they're just gonna think we had an easy walk the whole time in your video we did have an easy walk the whole time out here amongst all the talus we find this rock feature i did not make that who made that was it you carl how could it be me i'm right here who did that it must have been the pioneers so here we have a great view of our route we're going to go through the forest and then next to gray butte you have virginia peak over there you have stanton peak over there and then stanton pass going over to the other side there's sky pilot coal this is our last lake of the sierra high route and so to commemorate we're gonna jump in the water oh yeah [Applause] how far you going our last pass is over there horse creek pass this is it this is well we gotta get down [Music] we decided we preferred the texture on this side so we're going down this way we are trying to get cell phone signal because if we can get a message out to a friend we may be able to get picked up sooner and then we would just hike out today but we will see otherwise it'll be great to spend another night out here wave goodbye to the talus goodbye talus we'll see you next time all right guys we got matterhorn peak behind us we're here at our last pass of the sierra higher at horse creek pass that's it it's all downhill echo echo jimmy how do you fill it about getting out of here tonight heck yeah let's do it get out and dates low two things one the talus is not over we wave goodbye to it but it's back and two carl has come up with a team name the talus cowboys all right i think that's the last of the talus what do you think carl that's the last of the talus i think okay it's me again we're back on dallas we had a really nice dinner on the rocks and had a great view and now for dessert we've got more talents you can just never say goodbye to telus because it's always there it's always around the corner always ready to spring up on you [Music] we had dinner so now we're just on an evening stroll even stroll down the trailhead yep the final stroll so it is 8 27. we are descending in the dark when i turn on this flashlight carl thought i was going to illuminate illuminating us but i am not illuminating the trail we are doing it blind we might die but we are close enough to people that if we die they can at least recover our bodies we still finish the trek all right so this is how the adventure concludes um do you see lights and we smell fire and we don't know where the heck we are [Music] oh my goodness having breakfast it's a breakfast burrito and breakfast is a great time for beer cheers so leisurely you see this guys this is called a momentary respite we dropped from 3.5 miles an hour to 3.2 this is the worst filming on record because i'm struggling to keep up thank goodness there's a lake here otherwise they never would have stopped oh look at this view this is why i suffer that's part of the format we're in an elevator carl why don't we have some of these outside some of those rocks took me this year down look at all the cars at onion valley trailhead what's happening hey guys it is day 16 of the adventure and we are hiking out from the onion valley trailhead right now we're going up over kearsarge pass and uh these are going to be our 20-ish logistics miles back to the car at road's end but if you're an optimist this is a section hike of the ray lakes loop we're not quite at the level of like senior mirrors taco hut but we're basically like pizza and beer walking up the hill right now [Applause] i don't know if somebody really looked sad and needed to pick me up i'd probably give them my pizza and beer i don't need it i feel great just being out here had a rest day yesterday as they call it even though i think that worked me pretty good active recovery first it was active then it was recovery an hour 35 minutes in we just hit our last pass of this trip number 35 cure search pass this is an amazing view of east vedette oh what happened here yeah so uh just broke that because i was trying to dodge the mud silly let's see if it works a beer can inside a pot inside a bear can a bag of chips oh i'm looking forward to these chips right now really good pizza and a second beer for carl cheers not sure exactly what happened but we stopped for lunch where we had beer and pizza and next thing i know my trekking pole which was broken is taped back together and i'm walking with a bag of chips around my neck great height down this is a really neat forest there's some huge trees in here oh man king's canyon you are beautiful it is pretty hot i've been dousing myself and wow i've been testing myself in water it's about to get dusty and poopy steve roper said the final indignity of the sierra high route was getting down to mono village and the twin lakes trailhead i think for this adventure the indignity here is falling behind this mule train and getting stuck behind them turns out they're not feeding their mules enough they're not feeding them pizza and beer because they're not fast enough we did it we're done that was the final indignity right there [Laughter] wait water comes out of our rock dude all right 15 days later we are here at the car again nice now the adventure is officially over we're gonna drive and eat and do all that fun stuff see you on the next one you

Channel: Hiking Nerd

Views: 16,581

Rating: 4.9528489 out of 5

Keywords: sierra high route, shr, sierra high route 2020, john muir trail, jmt, jmt 2020, pct, pacific crest trail, pct2020, high route, off-trail, hiking, backpacking, trekking, sierra nevada, camping, sierras, high sierra, thru-hike, thru hike, backcountry, wilderness, trek, outdoors, kings canyon, inyo, yosemite, steve roper, cross-country, travel, explore, adventure, mountains, climbing, high sierra trail, tuolumne, road’s end, twin lakes, mono village, high sierra route

Id: 0azUh076iWk

Length: 70min 41sec (4241 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 16 2020