If you can spare a few bucks for those affected by the Pack Fire, a little bit goes a long way ❤️

Mokelumne Peak

Mount Kaweah Day 3: Exit

Mount Kaweah Day 2: Mount Kaweah

Mount Kaweah Day 1: Approach

It was probably not in the teens last night, but definitely mid 20s in the morning, so we couldn't really get moving before the sun was on us. But the smoke cleared! So we decided to keep going with the rerouted plan, which required getting over to Hutchins Creek. We came up with three routes, from least adventurous to most adventurous: descend to the Isberg Pass Trail and climb Hutchins Creek; cross Vogelsang Pass, the shoulder of Amelia Earhart Peak, and Russell Pass; or cross Hell Hole and Russell Pass. We opted for the third, armed with only info from Secor. We spotted a possible shortcut on the topo too across the pass just south of the proglacial lake directly south of Simmons Peak.

Ascending Hell Hole wasn't bad, there were interspersed sections of talus and easy walking. When we got a view of our intended shortcut it was obvious it wouldn't go, there's a 400' cliff above the lake. The cliff is on the USGS maps but not the GaiaTopo map. So we stuck with the original plan. The final climb to the pass was fine, though this area is in the same band of crappy rock as Mount Maclure.  We spotted a party traversing from Simmons Peak and met up at the pass and talked with them for a few minutes, they were attempting the Convoluted Bliss traverse (a 51-peak linkup from Emeric Peak to Quartzite Peak), though they intended to drop from Russell Pass to go fetch some new gear from their car at Tuolumne.

After assessing our options, we decided to attempt the traverse to Russell Pass instead of dropping beneath the cliff band east of Hell Hole and climbing again. The climb to Peak 12499 was fine, but the descent was a bit tricky. We tried to drop into Hutchins Creek early, but encountered steep terrain and garbage rock, so we had to climb back up and stick to the east side of the divide until we got to the pass. Then we descended the west side of Russell Pass, which felt quite easy compared to the crux of the traverse and easier than 2 years ago, I thought. I'm not sure the traverse saved us any time, but it was quite adventurous. It started to snow a bit as we made our way down from Russell Pass, fortunately not too hard. The final descent from Lake 11572 was chill, just cold. It took us a while to find a decent campsite in the upper reaches of beautiful Hutchins Creek. There was a nice sunset, but it was well below freezing, so we didn't enjoy it for too long.

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Iain Macdonald

South Yosemite Day 4: Hell Hole - Russell Pass Traverse

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If you can spare a few bucks for those affected by the Pack Fire, a little bit goes a long way ❤️

Mokelumne Peak

Mount Kaweah Day 3: Exit

Mount Kaweah Day 2: Mount Kaweah

Mount Kaweah Day 1: Approach

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