Sierra South. Mike White

      Backpacker on the McGee Creek Trail (Trips 49–52)

       INTRODUCTION

      Welcome to what we think is just about the most spectacular mountain range in the contiguous 48 states. The Sierra Nevada is a hiker’s paradise filled with its hundreds of miles of wilderness uninterrupted by roads, hundreds of miles of trails, thousands of lakes, countless rugged peaks and canyons, vast forests, giant sequoias, and terrain ranging from deep, forested river valleys to sublime, treeless alpine country.

Updates for the Eighth Edition

      Welcome, too, to the eighth edition of Wilderness Press’s Sierra South. For this edition, we have some new co-authors, and we’ve taken a radically different approach to organizing the trips. This book is divided first into the Sierra’s west and east sides and second, within the west and east sides, into road sections so you can easily locate your favorite part of the southern Sierra. Each road section includes trailheads that serve as starting points for the many individual trips in the book. Additionally, each trailhead includes a map showing every trip launching from that point, and each trip includes an elevation profile. We’ve also incorporated Global Positioning System (GPS) data as UTM coordinates into our trips for GPS users. We think these changes reflect the way in which you’ll actually use this book better than previous editions have.

      Sierra South now spans the Sierra from the southern boundary of Yosemite National Park and from Yosemite’s eastern boundary south of Hwy. 120 (the Tioga Road) to the Sherman Pass area, covering a greater north-south region than previous editions. This region includes the true High Sierra, with its abundance of dramatic, above-treeline granite peaks and basins. As of its ninth edition, this book’s sister, Sierra North, covers the Sierra from Yosemite north through the Tahoe area to I-80 and the proposed Castle Peak Wilderness just north of I-80.

      Unlike the region covered by Sierra North, in the territory this book covers, no roads cross the range between Hwy. 120 on the north and the network of roads that cross Sherman Pass, a distance of some 140 air miles to the south. However, along those 140 air miles, many roads penetrate the range from its west and east sides, and these are the roads you’ll use to get to trailheads in this book. The book’s first major trip section covers the region’s west side and presents roads into the west side from north to south. The second major trip section covers the Sierra’s east side and, also from north to south, the roads into the range from the east.

      If you have used previous editions of Sierra South, you’ll find many of your old favorite trips here, as well as some wonderful new ones. Our coverage now includes Dinkey Lakes, Kaiser, and Jennie Lakes wildernesses, in addition to Ansel Adams, John Muir, and Golden Trout wildernesses. Most longer trips can be abbreviated to create fine, shorter ones, and many can be linked to other trips to create multiweek adventures. As before, this edition includes the must-see High Sierra Trail (now Trip 31).

      It’s our hope that this new edition will help you enjoy our superb southern Sierra as well as give you an incentive to work to preserve it.

      We appreciate hearing from our readers. One of our goals is to keep improving these books for you. Please let us know what did and didn’t work for you in this new edition and about changes you find. We’re at 1200 5th St., Berkeley, CA 94710; [email protected]; 800-443-7227; 510-558-1666; fax [phone]. Please visit us online at www.wildernesspress.com.

Care and Enjoyment of the Mountains

      Be a Good Guest

      The Sierra is home—the only home—to a spectacular array of plants and animals. We humans are merely guests—uninvited ones at that. Be a careful, considerate guest in this grandest of Nature’s homes.

      About a million people camp in the Sierra wilderness each year. The vast majority of us cares about the wilderness and tries to protect it, but it is threatened by some who still need to learn the art of living lightly on the land. The solution depends on each of us. We can minimize our impact. The saying, “Take only memories (or photos), leave only footprints,” sums it up.

      Learn to Go Light

      John Muir, traveling along the crest of the Sierra in the 1870s with little more that his overcoat and his pockets full of biscuits was the archetype.

      Muir’s example may be too extreme for many, but we think he might have appreciated modern lightweight equipment and food as a great convenience. A lot of the stuff that goes into the mountains is burdensome, harmful to the wilderness, or just plain annoying to other people seeking peace and solitude. Please leave behind anything that is obtrusive or that can be used to modify the terrain: gas lanterns, radios, hatchets, gigantic tents, etc.

      Carry Out Your Trash

      You packed that foil and those cans and bags in when full; you can pack them out empty. Never litter or bury your trash.

      Sanitation

      Eliminate body wastes at least 100 feet, and preferably 200 feet, from lakes, streams, trails, and campsites. Bury feces at least 6 inches deep wherever possible. Intestinal pathogens can survive for years in feces when they’re buried, but burial reduces the chances that critters will come in contact with them and carry pathogens into the water. Where burial is not possible due to lack of enough soil or gravel, leave feces where they will receive maximum exposure to heat and sunlight to hasten the destruction of pathogens. Also help reduce the waste problem in the backcountry by packing out your used toilet paper, facial tissues, tampons, sanitary napkins, and diapers. It’s easy to carry them out in a heavy-duty, self-sealing plastic bag.

      Protect the Water

      Just because something is “biodegradable,” like some soaps, doesn’t mean it’s okay to put it in the water. In addition, the fragile sod of meadows, lakeshores, and streamsides is rapidly disappearing from the High Sierra. Pick “hard” campsites, sandy places that can stand the use. Camp at least 200 feet from water unless that’s absolutely impossible; in no case camp closer than 25 feet. Don’t make campsite “improvements” like rock walls, bough beds, new fireplaces, or tent ditches.

      Avoid Campfires

      Use a modern, lightweight backpacking stove. (If you use a gas-cartridge stove, be sure to pack your used cartridges out.) Campfires waste a precious resource: wood that would otherwise shelter animals and, upon falling and decaying, return vital nutrients to the soil. Campfires also run the risk of starting forest fires.

      Exercise special care when using an ultra-lightweight alcohol stove, as its flames tend to be uncontrollable when the pot is off the burning stove. Be sure the area is cleared for at least a cubic yard of flammable materials above, around, and below the stove.

      If your stove fails and you must cook over a campfire in order to survive, here are some guidelines: If possible, camp in an established site with an existing fireplace you can use. If you must build a fireplace, build with efficiency and restoration in mind: two to four medium-sized rocks set parallel along the sides of a narrow, shallow trench in a sandy place. Set the pot on the rocks and over the fire, which you can feed with small sticks and twigs (use only dead and downed wood). Never leave the fire unattended. Before you leave, thoroughly extinguish the fire and pour water over the ashes, and then restore the site by scattering the rocks and filling the trench.

      To use a stove or have a campfire where legal, you must have a California Campfire Permit. One such permit is good for the season. Your wilderness permit can double as your California Campfire Permit. If you’re taking a trip that doesn’t require a wilderness permit, you still need a California Campfire Permit, available at any ranger station.

      Respect the Wildlife

      Avoid trampling on nests, burrows, or other homes of animals. Observe all fishing limits and keep shorelines clean and clear of litter. If angling, use biodegradable line and never leave any of it behind. If you come across an animal, just quietly observe it. Above all, don’t go near any nesting animals and their young. Get “close”