white mountain peak - 14252' - Class 1
July 2019
With only a half day remaining of our short trip down to the Sierras, Steven and I decided it made the most sense to drive all the way up to the White Mountains after dinner. We had just completed the Palisade Traverse and wanted to do another quick hike before starting the long drive back. It was a long scenic drive up the windy road onto the crest of the White Mountains, which tower high above Bishop on the east side of the Owens Valley. The High Sierras on the opposite side were breathtaking from this vantage. We found a nice secluded place to crash a short ways up the Grandview Mine road just off the main White Mountain Crest Road. The next morning we watched the sunrise over the Sierras from a small rocky perch just above our camp spot. We continued the long drive up to the gate for the Barcroft Research Station which took us up a windy narrow gravel road but it wasn't too bad. We were well above treeline by this point, however the feel of these mountains couldn't be more different than the Sierras. These mountains were broad, gentle, and incredibly dry with cool geologic colors visible everywhere. The rocks were primarily extrusive volcanic as opposed to the granite in the Sierras. There were no lakes and the trees were much different, and more sparse.
Amazingly the gate to the research station was open, and it was tempting for us to drive all the way up to save 2 miles of road walking each way, however we figured it would get locked at some point during the day, so we parked at the open grassy field and started the plod up the road. We made great time following the still very decent road all the way to the summit, arriving 3 hours after we left the truck. We passed a number of other hikers as well, including an older gentleman with his granddaughter who caped in the large meadow halfway up. There was a large research hut on the summit that explicitly stated not to open or enter due to delicate research in progress. My mind obviously entered the gutter lol.
We were able to get an excellent view of the entire Palisade Traverse from the summit and reviewed our climb which was fun to see. Knowing we had a long drive ahead of us we started back down. We noticed some very old looking Bristlecone pines along the way down. We did the whole drive back to Seattle in one push, Steven doing most of it, but I took over the graveyard shift from about 1am-5:30am. Steven dropped me off at my parents place in Renton the next morning, then he had to suffer through Bellevue traffic at morning rush hour to complete his trek back to Vancouver.
Amazingly the gate to the research station was open, and it was tempting for us to drive all the way up to save 2 miles of road walking each way, however we figured it would get locked at some point during the day, so we parked at the open grassy field and started the plod up the road. We made great time following the still very decent road all the way to the summit, arriving 3 hours after we left the truck. We passed a number of other hikers as well, including an older gentleman with his granddaughter who caped in the large meadow halfway up. There was a large research hut on the summit that explicitly stated not to open or enter due to delicate research in progress. My mind obviously entered the gutter lol.
We were able to get an excellent view of the entire Palisade Traverse from the summit and reviewed our climb which was fun to see. Knowing we had a long drive ahead of us we started back down. We noticed some very old looking Bristlecone pines along the way down. We did the whole drive back to Seattle in one push, Steven doing most of it, but I took over the graveyard shift from about 1am-5:30am. Steven dropped me off at my parents place in Renton the next morning, then he had to suffer through Bellevue traffic at morning rush hour to complete his trek back to Vancouver.
Proudly powered by Weebly