Author Archives: Miguel

How to plan a High Sierra Trail backpacking trip

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It’s one of California’s best multi-day backpacking trips, a spectacular traverse of the Sierra Nevada, taking you from the mountain range’s biggest trees to its tallest peaks. The High Sierra Trail starts at Crescent Meadow in western Sequoia National Park and ends 50 miles to the east at the junction with the John Muir Trail. From there, most hikers continue to the summit of Mount Whitney and then hike down to Whitney Portal. The full trip is about 74 miles and takes four to eight days.

But the delights of the High Sierra Trail don’t come easy. In addition to the challenges of a typical Sierra Nevada backpacking trip, the High Sierra Trail introduces two others: scarce permits and a huge distance between the start and end trailheads. In July of 2011 I hiked the High Sierra Trail, and these notes can help you plan your own trip.

IMG_0655 Elizabeth and Miguel at High Sierra Trail start

Weather

Your first decision is what time of year to go. In the spring, lingering snow can cover trails and melting snow can swell streams to dangerous levels. In the fall, the risk of an early snowstorm increases by the week. Avoid these times of year. Generally, the best period to be on the High Sierra Trail is from late July to mid-September. Aside from the occasional thundershower, weather in the Sierra Nevada during these weeks is clear and pleasant.

Bear canisters

Your next decision is how to carry your food. Contrary to popular belief, a bear canister is not required on the High Sierra Trail. Bear canisters are only required in the Whitney Zone, east of Mount Whitney’s summit, so if you don’t spend a night in the Whitney Zone, you don’t need a canister. Nevertheless, you are likely to encounter bears on the High Sierra Trail and I recommend storing your food in a canister. On our 2011 trip, we all carried one. After seeing two bears next to the trail on our first day, we didn’t mind carrying them. With careful packing, you can fit all of your food for the trail into a single large bear canister.

Direction

Now, which direction to hike? As a rule, the western slope of the Sierra Nevada is much gentler than the eastern slope, so, when hiking from west to east, you ascend slowly with lots of time to acclimate before climbing Mount Whitney. When hiking in the other direction though, you climb Mount Whitney first, then descend gradually for the next several days.

Permits

The truth is, if you’re in good shape and not prone to altitude sickness, you can do the hike in either direction. A bigger concern is getting a permit. Hiking from east to west means starting in the Mount Whitney zone, which is an enormously popular area with strict quotas for backcountry visitors. Getting a permit for a Whitney Portal start is notoriously difficult: you must choose a set of preferred dates by February, enter a lottery, and then hope for the start date you want. Getting a permit from Crescent Meadow in the west is comparatively easy. But you still need to get one early. When I got my High Sierra Trail permit in April 2011, reservation quotas had already been met for many of the best starting dates. As an added bonus, Crescent Meadow happens to be within Sequoia National Park, which means you don’t need a Trail Crest Exit permit (which would otherwise be required for a trip ending at Whitney Portal).

Logistics

Because the start and end trailheads are 280 miles apart, you need to think about out how to get from one trailhead to the other. There are five basic options:

Car shuttle

Have everyone drive to the end trailhead. Leave half the cars there, then use the remaining cars to drive everyone to the start trailhead. At the end of the hike, use the cars at the end trailhead to drive everyone back to the start trailhead.

Friends

Convince your friends or family to drop you off and pick you up. Lure them with promises of a scenic drive and reimbursement for gas, food, and lodging.

Key swap

Split your group in half and start at opposite ends of the trail. Exchange keys in the middle. Organize a meeting spot afterwards to return the keys.

Public transportation

You can park in Visalia and take public transportation to Crescent Meadow. At the end, you can hitchhike to Lone Pine, then take public transportation back to Visalia.

Private transportation

You might be able to hire a van to transport you between Whitney Portal and Crescent Meadow. But even if you’re willing to spend the hundreds of dollars this costs, you might still not get a ride. When I called shuttle companies in 2011, they said they wouldn’t do the drive at any price.

Driving route

There are two routes you can take from one trailhead to another. Both take about the same time (five and a half hours) and both are exceptionally scenic:

For the first route, take 395 south from Lone Pine, then 14 to Mojave. In Mojave, take 58 to Bakersfield. Then take 99 to Visalia and 198 to Lodgepole. This route is longer, but on straight, fast roads.

For the second route, take 395 south from Lone Pine, then 178 west to Lake Isabella. Continue on 178 to Bakersfield. Then take 99 to Visalia and 198 to Lodgepole. This route is shorter, but on winding, mountainous roads.

Before the hike

Finally, you’ll need to decide where to spend the night before the hike. If you’re starting from the east, Lone Pine or Whitney Portal are good choices. From the west, you can spend the night before in a motel in Fresno or Visalia or you can camp somewhere along the General’s Highway. Lodgepole is the best option there, since you’ll need to pick up your wilderness permit at the ranger station there on the day you start hiking. Be aware that Lodgepole’s campsites are reservable and fill up quickly, so reserve them ahead of time. There are other campgrounds along General’s Highway, but they are first-come first-served.

Personal recommendation

All that said, what’s my personal recommendation? Pick a week in August to do the hike from west to east; get a permit in early March for yourself and some friends and then make camping reservations at Lodgepole in Sequoia National Park for the night before the hike; on the Friday before the trip, have everyone with a car drive themselves to Lone Pine; on Saturday morning, leave half the cars at Whitney Portal, then drive to Lodgepole to camp; on Sunday morning, get your permit and start hiking; hike all week, finish on Saturday, and spend the night in Lone Pine; on Sunday, pick up your cars from Lodgepole and drive home.

Hiking Carolina Beach State Park

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Foot-long pine needles lay on the fine, white sand, forming copper mats that nearly covered the ground. Overhead, the longleaf pines (Pinus palustris) were no more than twenty feet tall and maybe a few decades old. All around us, turkey oaks (Quercus laevis) formed a scraggly thicket in the understory. The morning was cloudy with a warm, moist breeze.

Hiker on Carolina Beach State Park Swamp Trail

Elizabeth and I had been walking through the pine savanna for over a mile. We were in Carolina Beach State Park, a patch of remnant forest on Pleasure Island, off the coast of southeastern North Carolina. Bounded by water on two sides and roads and houses on the other two, the forest wasn’t very large, and we were able to hike nearly all of its trails.

Forest on Sugarloaf Dome in Carolina Beach State Park

We climbed Sugarloaf Dune, a sandhill whose summit elevation — fifty feet — was the highest point in the park. The sandhill supported a beautiful grove of sand live oaks (Quercus geminata), short trees whose furrowed bark and twisting branches were adorned with Spanish moss. The clouds began to break and gave us a fine view west toward the mainland.

We descended from the rarefied heights of Sugarloaf Dune and returned to the longleaf pine savanna. As if someone had flipped a switch, the clouds suddenly dissipated, revealing a pale blue sky and a sun that turned the savanna instantly hot. The white sand became too bright to look at.

Venus fly trap on Carolina Beach State Park Flytrap Trail

We skirted a pocosin, a shallow bog of pond pines (Pinus serotina), red maples (Acer rubrum), and shrubs. The low levels of nitrogen and phosphorous in the pocosin’s soil have made it a home for plants that get nutrients from other sources, namely insects and spiders: the pocosin is one of the few places on earth where you can find wild Venus fly traps (Dionaea muscipula).

Hiker and forest in Carolina Beach State Park

After the pocosin, we took the Swamp Trail through a tall, dense coastal-fringe forest. Dark magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora), leafy sweetgums (Liquidambar styraciflua), and stout loblolly pines (Pinus taeda) closed in on the trail, and poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), wild grape (Vitis sp.), and Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) wrapped tree trunks and hung from branches.

We took the Snow’s Cut Trail back to camp, completing our hike in three hours.

Coarse woody debris

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In early September 1996, Hurricane Fran swept over the barrier islands of North Carolina and pushed inland toward Raleigh-Durham. As it approached, its winds became stronger than anyone had expected. Umstead State Park, a heavily forested area between the two cities, was hit particularly hard. Fran blew down thousands of trees, snapping power lines, wrecking buildings, and blocking over thirty miles of trails. The park was closed for eight months. But despite the devastation to the park’s built environment, the hurricane was probably beneficial to the park’s natural environment.

Today, the sky over Umstead Park was a sheet of high, gray clouds. Last night’s rain had left the forest glistening green and left the ground a damp carpet of pine needles and crushed leaves. A cool breeze blew through the understory. It was a perfect day for being out in the woods, and a pleasant taste of the coming autumn.

White oak (Quercus alba) on William B. Umstead State Park Sycamore Trail

The forest was diverse, populated with three species of pine, six species of hickory, and a dozen species of oak. But this was my first time out in the southeastern mixed forests and I couldn’t identify most of them. The white oaks (Quercus alba) were huge, with thick trunks and low, spreading branches. They looked like old trees that might have already been growing when Umstead was formed from farmland in the 1930s.

Many of the parks in America’s eastern forests were created during this time — between the Civil War and the Great Depression — when eastern farms were abandoned for more easily cultivated grasslands to the west. As each park was designated, its forests began growing all at once from fields and pastures, resulting in forests with a similar look: tall, straight trees, evenly spaced over a lawn-like understory of grass and ferns.

These woods are undeniably pretty and pleasant to visit, but they’re missing something. Even though they are eighty, ninety, sometimes a hundred years old, they are immature. Like a city that has no cemetery because its inhabitants are all the same age, the trees are decades from a natural death, and the forest floor is strangely devoid of dead wood. But this wood, called coarse woody debris, might be the most important and conspicuous characteristic of a mature forest.

Forest on William B. Umstead State Park Sycamore Trail

Coarse woody debris encompasses everything from broken branches to rotting stumps, from fallen trees to tipped-up roots. It accumulates naturally as a forest ages, and can account for over a quarter of all the wood in a mature forest. For people who have only seen young, manicured forests all their lives — and there are a lot of these people — the appearance of pervasive disorder created by coarse woody debris can be upsetting. It looks as if something’s gone wrong. But the truth is that it’s the sign of a healthy forest. Coarse woody debris increases the biodiversity of a landscape. It’s a way nutrients get recycled back to the earth. It’s habitat for mosses and fungi, shelter for small animals, home for insects, and a buffet for the animals that eat those insects. Have you ever watched a bear shred a rotten log looking for ants? That’s coarse woody debris he’s eating out of.

Creek on William B. Umstead State Park Sycamore Trail

The benefits of coarse woody debris are now so well-known that foresters have developed techniques to accelerate its development. A guide published by the University of Massachusetts, for example, gives forest owners instructions on how to girdle trees so that they die and turn into standing snags, how to fell others so their logs rot on the forest floor, and how to create clearings around big trees so they can grow even bigger. By increasing the habitat diversity in a forest, these artificial means lead to a natural end. But these artificial techniques won’t be necessary in Umstead Park, thanks to Hurricane Fran.

I was walking next to murky, brown Sycamore Creek. It flowed silent and deep in some places, loud and rocky in others. The forest floor on both sides was littered with the coarse woody debris left by the hurricane. The fallen wood has made the forest mature, leaving it filled with a variety of microhabitats that hadn’t existed before, and leaving gaps in the canopy that let more sunlight into the understory. The forest has become more diverse, a mix of old trees and saplings, shady groves and sunny gaps that support a greater variety of wildlife than a uniform forest. Hurricane Fran’s impact was, so to speak, a windfall for the park’s environment.