Sierra High Route

Clammoring, cavorting, and debouching on the Sierra High Route. The SHR is a route, a general direction that traverses from point A, Copper Creek Trailhead in Kings Canyon, to Point B, about 215 miles away at Mono Village NE of Yosemite. It's mostly off-trail, yes, bushwhacking through willows, boulder hopping miles of talus per day, and hands-on climbing up and down from one remote, steep, notch in the mountains to another. To find our way across the lumps and folds on the roof of the Sierra Nevada mountains, we used a lot of our map and compass skills, past cross-country experience, and a GPS, sometimes while dodging lightening and hail. The route is defined and described in Steve Roper's Book, the Sierra High Route, Traversing Timberline Country, although much of it is way above timberline. There are 33 passes that you get up and over with his minimal suggestions. In 33 days we saw 4 people doing what we were doing (the whole route in one summer), 11 others doing various sections, and Dan, the feral hiker doing his own solo spiritual practice, sleeping on peaks in Paradise. I started training for this in Feb. Everyone who participated in this venture, those who did the whole thing and everyone else in our party who did sections, made the incredible effort to arrive in awesome shape and acclimated. While it was the hardest trip I've ever done and probably will ever do, I surprised myself at what I can still do at 61.The logistics for the mule resupplies and resupplies in Mammoth and Tuolumne were a challenge to manage. Much thanks goes to Carolyn's parents for transporting us to the trailhead after we dropped off our cars in Mono Village and for cooking and feeding us mass quantities of delicious food. I know there's a lot of pictures, but, heck, it was 33 days!! These were culled down from over 1500.