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A Lesson in Shoulder Season Snow - Mt Lola, CA · Off You Pop!

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is Off You Pop, the podcast for hikers and adventurers who want to be epic in just one day.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is Story Pop, where the route isn't a checklist, it's a moment in time.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: A day that doesn't just happen, it reveals something.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're heading to Mount Lola, a quiet giant north of Truckee.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: A mountain that looks simple on paper.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Rolling meadows, clean ridgelines, a summit just shy of ninety two hundred feet.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it becomes something entirely different when the seasons shift.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because this weekend, shoulder season snow turned Mount Lola into a different mountain.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not dangerous but consequential.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not technical, but honest.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of snow that hides the trail, softens the ground, and forces you to rethink every assumption you made at the trailhead.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a pop.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a guide.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is a story about a mountain that looks gentle until it isn't.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: A day shaped by late spring snow.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the moment you realize that shoulder season isn't a date on the calendar, it's a mindset.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is story pop.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is Mount Lola.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is Off You Pop.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Mount Lola scores 52 out of a hundred on the difficulty scale.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's moderate hard, long, but not brutal.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: In the environment, it's high exposure to wind, cold, and snow, especially in the shoulder season.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not very technical, it scores low, there's one trail in, and it's simple to follow, but the navigation becomes real when the snow covers the trail.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Logistically, the access is simple, there's a road to the trailhead, but it does feel remote, and psychologically, it can be quiet, especially in the empty basin in winter conditions.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a long steady climb, wind exposure on the upper ridge, snow covered trails that require route finding, and a cold drainage basin that holds winter longer than the surrounding peaks.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Mount Lola is a mountain that doesn't fight you, it just waits for you to understand it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Mount Lola sits in the northern Sierra Nevada, and its geology is classic Sierra uplift with a twist.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's primarily granitic bedrock from the Sierra Nevada Batholith, formed during the Cretaceous 80 to 100 million years ago, but later it was shaped by glacial carving during the Pleistocene, the summit plateau and the meadows formed by glacier scouring and sediment deposition.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: What this means on the ground is that smooth granite is underfoot.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: There are broad open meadows carved by ancient ice.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The ridgelines are rounded instead of jagged peaks, and the drainage holds the snow much longer into the spring and early winter.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is the home of the Northern Walshaw and Medu peoples.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: They've used this land for hunting, plant gathering, and high country travel for thousands of years.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: The meadows were important ecological zones for food and materials.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: In modern times, it's more popular with hikers, backcountry skiers, and wildlife researchers.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's known for its solitude and its big sky fill.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's talk about the woman who the mountain is named after.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's named after a woman called Lola Montez.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Before Mount Sorolola was a summit on a map, it was a name, and the name belonged to a woman who lived louder than the century she was born into.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Lola Montez wasn't a mountaineer, she wasn't a naturalist or a cartographer, or anyone who spent her life wandering the Sierra.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: She was a performer, a dancer, an actress, a scandal, a myth, a woman who reinvented herself so many times that even historians argue over which version was real.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: She was born in Ireland, raised in India, reinvented in Spain, adored in Paris, infamous in Munich.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Lola Montes lived a life that felt like a series of costume changes.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: She was bold, magnetic, impossible to ignore.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: She performed the infamous spider dance, captivated kings, and left a trail of broken rules across Europe.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then somehow she ended up in the Sierra Nevada.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: During the gold rush, she moved to Grass Valley, a mining town full of dust, noise, and men who believed the world owed them treasure.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lola didn't come for gold, she came for reinvention.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: She built a cabin, hosted saloons, wrote, performed, and became a kind of cultural lightning bolt in a place that barely had streets.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: She was rumored to be friends with Mark Twain and carried a whip.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: She was the kind of person who walked into a room and changed the temperature.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when surveyors named the highest peak in the region after her, it wasn't because she climbed it, it was because she fit it.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: A mountain that looks gentle from a distance, but reveals its truth only when you're on it.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: A mountain that doesn't shout its elevation, it just stands there unapologetically itself.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: A mountain that like Lola has a presence you feel before you understand it.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're climbing Mount Lola, in shoulder season snow, when the trail disappears, when the wind sharpens, and the mountain asks you to pay attention, you can feel a little of that Lola Montez energy.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The sense that this place, like the woman, refuses to be simple.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: A mountain named for a woman who lived in extremes, a climb shaped by a season that lives in between.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get on the trail.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's early May, and in my mind, it was time to get up into the Sierra Nevadas.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was hopeful that the snow had cleared enough to be able to reach the peaks.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: But to be honest, I wasn't really sure.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I could see the Sierras around Lake Tahoe were still holding their snow.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: But up towards the California line, the snow seemed to be dissipating somewhat.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was hopeful that Mount Lola, being a little further north, may just maybe be climbable this early in the shoulder season.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not from the west coast of the United States and you think that May is not the shoulder season, then you'd be very much mistaken.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the mountains can hold their snow year round, and most do not clear up until late June or early July.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so early May was a little optimistic.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Although it had not been a heavy snow.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: During the winter, there still have been some significant storms.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I did the research before I left and looked at the Tahoe National Forest, and it seemed like the last time they had updated their snow totals was in March.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought maybe six weeks later they may be a little outdated.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I saw the snow totals on Mount Lola, it seemed like they were gradually getting deeper and deeper up the mountain, and the depths up in the upper reaches up to the summit were 70 plus inches, which was certainly significant and would probably make this mountain on this day impassable.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I refuse to believe that.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I was itching to get into the Sierras.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now Mount Lola is on the Tahoe Ogol list, which is a list of 63 peaks around Lake Tahoe.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Western Climbers Club have formed into this iconic hiking and climbing list that you can attempt to complete.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something I've been working on for a couple of years, and I thought that Mount Lola would be a great kickoff for the Sierra hiking season this year and could be one of the ogles that I could bag early on with the hopes that the snow had had indeed cleared.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I started at 4 in the morning in Reno and drove out up to Truckee to Route 89, and that leads north up into the northern Sierras, and it was very dark, and when I reached Truckee on the I-80, just before the 89 turnoff, there was a little bit of a light cloud in the air that you could see through the headlights.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: But once you got off the freeway, you get into this deep alpine, evergreen forest, and there was no cloud there, and it felt like it was going to be a great day.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was a clear night, and it's about 15, 16 miles north of Truckee on Route 89, and I was uh chugging along quite happily, didn't really see any cars that time in the morning.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then all of a sudden, I see a roe deer standing right beside the road and slammed on my brakes to make sure that I didn't have a much shorter, a more unexpected date than I expected, but no, no real incident.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: The deer went on its way, and so did I.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so eventually you will get to the turn off to uh Mount Lola, and it's fairly well signposted up there.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are a few camping grounds along the 89 that were closed for the season, and I was getting a little bit worried that the turn-off uh would also be closed.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when I got to the the the road towards Mount Lola, I was quite surprised and relieved that it was open and very grateful that I could reach the trailhead.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the first first piece done, and quite happy that I could get on the on the road.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to take Cottonwood Road, and Cottonwood Road uh takes you immediately to Jackson Meadows Road.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: To begin with, Jackson Meadows Road is paved, and you follow it for about a mile or so before you hit Hennessy Pass Road, and this will kind of switch back on you a little bit, and it's really Hennessy Pass Road that you want to follow to the Mount Lola Trailhead, and it's a fairly flat, wide dirt road, a little rocky in places, a few puddles, but you can certainly make it through on a two-wheel drive.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And after about 20 minutes or so, you'll hit the Mount Lola trailhead, and it's very well signposted.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's a little gravel parking area at the beginning of the trailhead.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was about 5 30 when I hit the trailhead, and it was just getting light through the alpine trees.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I could see the moon, and it was right before fall light, and I just got ready and waited a few minutes just for the light to come up, and then I got on the trail.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to start with, the trail is fairly flat, it's a little bit rocky at the bottom.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: There are a few little inclines, maybe 50 to 100 feet tops, but it often flattens out, and quite quickly you're finding yourself deep in the forest.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, about half a mile in, there was a big pond puddle that had encroached upon the trail, and so had to bushwhack around it a little bit.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when I did rejoin the trail, it was basically a stream that was running down the trail, which was which was fine.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was clearly snow melt that was coming off of the mountain.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm climbing, it appears to me that the trail is actually quite gentle.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's ascending.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: There are a few uh little areas where it's a little bit steep, but they're never very long, and they do flatten out.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: You come up about a mile and you sort of pop out of the trees.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when you pop out of the trees, you get your first view of the rolling mountains of the northern Sierra.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a beautiful morning, it's a blue sky morning, a little chilly in the high 30s, but no wind, a nice quiet blue sky day.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And at about 7,000 feet, I saw the first patch of snow, nothing significant, but foreboding for what was to come.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just hiked across it because I wanted to test how soft it was, and it was rock solid ice, which actually felt like that was going to be useful later on in the day because traveling across soft deep snow was not something I was looking forward to doing.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if it was more solid and icy, that means that uh the micro spikes that I had packed were becoming very useful and hopefully make for a successful summit of the mountain.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're climbing, you get into this broad this broad valley that has a rushing creek in the bottom of it, and you are on the east side of the creek, and you're slowly, ever so slowly, gaining altitude on the side of the valley, and down below you can hear the creek rushing.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And on this day it was fairly evident that nobody had been up this trail for quite some time.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't see any footprints or any evidence that anyone had hiked here in a while.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what I did see was quite a lot of deadfall from the winter season.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're going out in shoulder season and going on maintained trails, you can kind of tell you're out there before the trail is sort of officially open before it's maintained, because there will be a fair amount of deadfall across the trail.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so that adds a little bit to the challenge of the navigation.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's trying to work your way through various bits of fallen trees that have been snapped off by the wind or the weight of the snow.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say about every 250, 500 yards, I come across another piece of dead fall that I had to navigate.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing too difficult, but I think it just added to the flavor of the hike.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I found the trail itself, single track for the first couple of miles, very easy to follow, very well defined, nothing really that would cause anybody any navigational challenges.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And just because of the way it made its way up this valley in this sort of general way, it was a pleasant hike that I think most people would enjoy in the summer months.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't enjoy navigating fallen trees, and maybe less for you at this time of the year, but no real substantial snow.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was just a few patches that I came across at this point, and it was turning out to be a real pleasant morning.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: The birds were starting to sing, the sky was this beautiful shade of blue, and as I'm coming up the trail, it suddenly terminates, and it terminates and joins this really wide, rocky road.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a surprise.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was going to be a single track trail all the way, but it was actually a bit of a relief because there was no deadfall across this very wide road, and so started to make good time.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: The road itself was very, very flat, maybe a slight incline, but you don't gain a significant amount of elevation along the road.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so you continue along the road and then it kind of dead ends.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when it dead ends, it veers off to the right, and there are a couple of big rocks that are blocking the road.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're somebody who's come up here along this road from wherever the access is to that road, because it's not the not the trailhead, this is as far as you can go.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you turn down past these boulders that are blocking the trail, there's a stream.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And at this time, early in the shoulder season, it was moving pretty rapidly, it was fairly deep, and the trail crosses the creek.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that I am gonna have to wet foot it across the creek, and I know this is fresh snow melt rushing down the creek.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are some evidence of stepping stones, so maybe in the summer, when you do this, you won't get wet feet because the water level will be significantly lower, and you can probably rock hop across here where the trail um traverses the creek.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that there was going to be some snow higher up the mountain, that was inevitable, and so I didn't relish the idea of getting wet feet.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there were some cuss words, not too proud to admit it, as I figured out how to get to get across the trail, and I just took the plunge.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: The water was immediately freezing cold.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: It went up to about the midway of my shins, and so my shoes and my socks and the lower part of my pants were soaked, and I could feel how frigid it was.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I just made my way cautiously across and eventually popped out on the other side, relieved to have made it across the creek, but my feet were freezing.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when I crossed the creek, there was immediately significantly more snow covering the trail.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to figure out where the trail went, and this is where I started to lose the trail somewhat because the snow patches became larger and larger as you made your way deeper and deeper into the alpine forest.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now I did check my map and I noticed that the trail pretty much follows the creek all the way up to the final ascent to the summit.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I use that as sort of a security blanket.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: As long as I keep the creek to my left and I can hear the water, I'm gonna be okay no matter how much I lose the trail.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started getting into the forest, and it gets not particularly thick, but certainly overgrown alpine forest, and uh immediately after the first snowbank, I lost the trail.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just picked my way through off trail a little bit, and every now and then I would find the trail again.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was just a matter of connecting with the trail, running into a snowbank, trying to find the trail again, and this went on for a little while, and it wasn't steep at this point, it was fairly flat, slowly, slowly getting higher and higher, but no significant climbs at this point.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was just that the snow was becoming more and more inconvenient and causing some slight navigational issues.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now the snow here was very solid, so you could walk across it without sinking into it, always just testing it.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was a little bit nerve-wracking to navigate through, but the snowbanks actually weren't that high.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Most places they were a foot, two foot at the most.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're traveling along, now that the creek is on your other side, the valley kind of starts opening out, and eventually you pop out into this beautiful, wide, open valley called Coldstream Meadow.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a surprise, it's really spectacular.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's sort of a wetland that the creek is winding its way through and surrounded by this big bowl, this big ridge of mountains that are completely covered in trees, and you're sort of in this isolated valley where there is no signs of humans save the trail.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was just spectacular.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: The only sound was really the sound of the birds singing.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: The sun is coming down and warming you up as you come out into this big open space out of the trees, and just follow the edge of the valley, and there's a small trail there, probably maybe a quarter of a mile before you're back into the trees and back into the snow.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get out of that valley, the snow starts to gradually become more and more substantial.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, whereas previously you are coming across these big patches of snow that are covering the trail, but then you get back on the trail, and there are patches of dirt and patches of snow.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now the reverse is starting to happen.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening now is there's more snow than there are patches of dirt.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so, really, it's now a matter of just trying to stay on the line roughly of where you think the trail is, and hoping you're heading in the right direction.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: The saving grace on this.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: One is always the creek is on the left.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can hear the creek, the creek is on the left.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: The snow is still very solid, which is is great because I haven't got microspikes out yet.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm able to get across the snow fairly easily.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And once in a while, I catch a lucky break, I catch a bit of the trail, so I know I'm heading in the right direction.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I come up through a little bit of woodland, I've lost the trail a little bit, and there's a raging creek that's coming down the mountain and is going into the into the main valley that's going to eventually go back into that meadow.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the snow is getting a little deeper, and so you can see that the snow banks are probably three feet at this point, but the snow is cornicing over the creek, so it's hard to try and figure out how to get into the creek and then out of the creek.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I spend a few minutes just trying to figure out where's the best entry point and exit point on the creek.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: I find a place where it kind of narrows and there's kind of an easy way to get in and out, but my feet are wet again.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm in the creek and I'm out of the creek and I'm up the other side.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And after this little creek, the snow does basically cover the mountain the rest of the way.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I go through the forest.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to avoid the trees because at this point the trees are going into the snow, and around the edge of the s of the trees are these deep pockets that you can fall into.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not careful, you can also break through the snow.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it usually happens close to trees or where there's a log that you can't see, or is just jutting out of the snow.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Around there, for some reason, the snow tends to get super soft, and this is where you stick your foot into the snow and you end up post holing.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's dangerous about this is you don't know what's underneath the snow, and quite often you can get yourself injured on a hidden branch.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I did fairly well navigating through the trees, but there was one point where I took a misstep, there was clearly a fallen log that was sticking out, and stepped in the wrong place, and lo and behold, my foot went in up to my knee.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was the only time it happened on the on the trail, except on the way back, when I did exactly the same thing again.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: But popped out into another little clearing, and you could see at this point the ridge line, and you could see the snow all the way up to the ridge.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: So clearly, we were getting into the into the deeper snow at this point.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just took a little break and I saw this very strange, perfectly circular hole in the snow in front of me, and I edged forward and I looked down through the hole, and the hole went down, I want to say, four to five feet, and it was very dark, but I could just make out at the bottom that there was a creek rushing underneath the snow.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I just had happened to stop in this big clearing.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: The snow above looked fine, it looked almost flat.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: There was a slight concave around where this hole was, and I realized that the creek was rushing underneath the snow.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a really, really dangerous part of hiking in the shoulder season.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: When you're hiking across the snow and you don't know what's underneath it, quite often there might you might find these creeks that are continuing to run underneath, you know, four or five feet of snow.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really, really dangerous because the snow on top of the creek is likely to be much softer.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the danger is if you break through the snow and you fall into that creek, you can get sucked underneath the snow.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the that's really, really dangerous.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where uh people die.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And people have died this way by you know not realizing that they're getting into a bit of softer snow and crossing these little creeks, which are highly dangerous.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I could tell that that creek was probably up to my chest in snow if I'd broken through.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was strong enough to suck me under, but still, it would have been a very nasty experience and very difficult to get out of.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I stopped and I put the crampons on, got my four-wheel drive on, then I got the poles out.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't taken out the poles to this point because it had been fit a fairly general grade, but I could tell now we're in the serious snow, it's getting deep, we're now four or five feet of snow, and I needed to make sure I was testing the snow because I didn't want to run into another one of these creeks unexpectedly.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I tested the snow above the creek, it was a little bit softer, and I just made a decision that I thought by using the pole I could tell it was more solid on the other side of this concave.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I I went for it, I took a big jump over and landed on solid snow, and so I've navigated safely across this underground creek.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Once you're back into forest, the the valley itself starts to narrow into more of a canyon.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where the elevation starts to gain quite significantly, and you're starting to go significantly more uphill.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the trail is nowhere to be found.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're just in deep snow, you're just basically traversing across the snow and trying to avoid those divots around the trees and trying to make test the snow to make sure you're not finding soft spots.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so it really became a matter of testing snow, walking, testing snow, walking, and then every now and then just checking the map to see where I was in relation to where the trail was, you know, four or five feet below the snow.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then to the left, the stream itself is becoming very aggressive because it's being funneled through this very narrow now canyon.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're climbing up into the canyon, you're on the top, it's getting further and further below you.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're sort of on the edge of the precipice of a deep canyon with a roaring stream below you, and you're just picking your way up to where you think the trail probably is.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I've made a decision that we're gonna continue as far as we could before it felt like it was too much.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I noticed on the map that the trail crosses the creek again.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: So now there's a third substantial creek crossing, and I don't know how I'm going to cross this creek because it is probably a couple of hundred feet below me, it's clearly roaring, and so I figured I would follow the map as best I could to the point where it crosses the creek.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as you climb up, it sort of levels out again, and I went kind of away from the creek a little bit and started to realize that the level of the creek and the drops were leveling out a little bit, and so I was hopeful that there was a place to cross where the trail went.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I eventually got to that point on the map where you could see the trail goes across the creek again.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But at this point, the snow was significantly deeper, and so on the opposite bank to where I was, the snow was probably four or five feet higher, and it was a wall of snow on the other side of the creek, so it wasn't like you could very easily uh just walk across and walk up, and it was cornicing over the creek in a fairly dramatic way.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you could get across the creek, you'll be faced with this snow that you sort of had to try and climb and navigate.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: I kept going a little further.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'll just go up.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I could see that there was a bend in the creek.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'll just go up to that bend and see if there's a way across.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, I found this area where the snow had melted, so there was a little dirt by the creek.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: On the other side, there was a place where the creek sort of slowed down a little and there was no snow there.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought this is the places where I'm gonna cross.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the creek is still rushing, it's still freezing cold water.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: You still have to navigate the creek.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't feel strong enough that it was gonna wash me away, and it felt fairly safe.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably about eight to ten feet across, and I could see that there was an area where the water was a little, it wasn't rushing quite so much.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I made the decision to cross the creek and freezing cold again.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely drenched my feet, got the bottom of my trousers wet.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I made it, I made it over the other side, and as soon as you're on the other side, now it's just snow.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's all snow, and it's all very deep snow.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can see in some of the wells of where the trees are, just how deep it is.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're getting up into six to eight feet of snow, and the the climbing really starts here.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can see that the only way is up.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So at this point, I was feeling like this was really more snowshoeing territory.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: I had microscopes, but the snow was still fairly solid, so I thought I'll just go a little bit further and see how far I can get.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, I think I'm within a mile or so of the peak.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: I checked where I was elevation, just over 8,000 feet at this point.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, well, there's only a thousand feet to go, and I can see I'm gonna have to start doing some climbing.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: So a thousand feet over a mile.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: If the snow is solid and it doesn't get too soft, and I'm not starting to, you know, lose my way.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe there's a way up to the peak.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can sort of see where the trail is going.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's heading up this gully and then up a slope.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: I decided to shortcut it a bit.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's snow everywhere.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to make sure that I was on the solid snow.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: So started very tentatively with the poles, making my way up this this sort of gully, and realized I wanted to hit the ridge, so I saw a little chute.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: It seemed fairly solid, and so I made my way climbing fairly dramatically up a chute.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the snow was solid, it was great with a with the micro spikes.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: It made short work of it, and so I just started a slog up the side of the gully to make the ridge, and it felt pretty good, felt pretty solid.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then I made the ridge and realized I had to now it flattened out a little, had to navigate through the trees, and now in the tree wells, I can just see how deep it is to the base of the trees when you look into them, and it was substantially deeper.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if I fell into one of those, it was going to be a struggle to get out, and I'm on my own, so I'm a little concerned, you know, that at that point, if I get stuck in the snow, I'm gonna have a hard time getting out.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to be very cautious about how soft the snow is and where I'm stepping.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's slow going at this point.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just taking my time, trying to avoid the trees as best I can, navigating through.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And my feet are starting to get frozen.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've been through three creeks, my socks are wet, my feet are a little wet, and it's starting to take its toll.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to wiggle my toes as I'm walking, but now I'm sinking a little bit into the snow, and it's a lot cooler up there.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, blue sky day, no wind, and I stop, and it's just silence.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally you'll hear a little bird, but otherwise the snow has muffled all of the sound, and you're in this complete silent white universe.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I keep going a little bit further, and I can see that the trail turns sharply up a ridgeline.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can sort of see it in the snow where it goes, but now in front of me I just see these big rolling snow drifts going further and further up the mountain, and I get to this point where the climb sort of re-engages and restarts.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just see in front of me these almost these big snow dunes.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: I figured I would try it, you know.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm close, I'm within striking distance.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at 83,000 and change, 84 in terms of where I am on the mountain.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: The mountain peak is 91, so there's only 700 feet to go.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm within half a mile, three-quarters of a mile to the top.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so just stop for a moment, get some electrolytes in me for the final push.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I decided to take the direct route.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can't see where the trail is, but there seemed to be clearings in the trees where it was possible to make it up.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And my assumption was that the snow would continue to be solid.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I start up the big first big dune, and now I can tell we're getting into 10 to 12 feet of snow.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: That 70 plus is a lie.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's much, much deeper.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it's exposed to the sun, and so I start climbing up the first dune, and now I'm starting to sink in more and sink in more and sink in more, and now starting to post hole, and I realize this is it.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is it for me.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: My day is done, there's no more climbing.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not possible to pass.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe if I had snowshoes, it would have been a different story, but even then, just the angle of the snow and just how deep it was at that point, I think I probably would have also made the same decision to turn back.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always a bit of a disappointment when you don't make it to the peak.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it'll be there later in the year if I want to go again.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be a pleasant, relatively easy hike to the summit.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen how the trail is, I've seen where it goes.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: It never gets super, super steep, except maybe this last section.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really pleasant hike.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I turned around, and then it was actually relatively easy to handle the snow when you're going downhill, and you've you can follow your footprints.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: You've already tested all the weak areas, and so made short work of getting back through the snow, just following where I'd come.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Could move relatively quickly because I had a fair amount of confidence that where I stepped was solid.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: I got back to that creep crossing, wet feet again.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: I made my way down the gully back to the cold stream valley, and I stopped, enjoyed the sun, took my micro spikes off, had a little break, little snack, enjoyed some electrolytes, and knew the rest of the way was a nice gentle descent back to the trailhead.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I used this time to focus on moving at speed with poles, you know, preparing some for some other hikes that's about to do.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I think there's a valuable lesson in today's hike.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Timing of the shoulder season is really difficult because you don't know what the conditions are like on the mountain.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: The trailhead, absolutely clear, beautiful, beautiful morning.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you're up there at the peak, a couple of thousand feet up, whole different story trying to navigate the snow, and especially when your feet are wet and cold and you've got to be aware the trail is and how soft the snow is.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes a bit of a bit of a different story.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I ended up doing about eight and a half miles.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: We did about 18, 1900 feet in elevation gain.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I will still say it's a beautiful day.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful mountain.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Highly recommend it if maybe a little bit later in the season, maybe July.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like that mountain in particular holds the snow much later than the rest of the Sierra.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that wasn't a good choice on my part.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: But otherwise, great day, great hike.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, off you pop.