John and I went up to Taboose Pass for an early season Sierra backpack and attempt to ascent 2 mountains: Striped Mtn. (13,185 ft \/ 4019 m), Cardinal Mtn. (13,402 ft \/ 4085 m). <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
With daytime temperatures in the area of the trailhead already in the 90’s we wanted to get an early start the next morning. So we met Thursday afternoon at John’s and carpooled to the Taboose Pass Trailhead where we set up camp in the early evening. There was some wind, but that kept the bugs away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Day 1:<\/strong> Day 2:<\/strong>
After breaking up camp we started hiking around 6:30. We made good progress until about 9,500 ft when the effects of the thinner air became more and more obvious. Just below 10,000 ft we encountered the first snowfield. Fortunately, it had softened and we were able to cross snowfields without too much slipping or post-holing. The pass plateau itself was covered with large snowfields, but they also were soft in the middle of the day. It took us almost 8h to cover the 7.1 miles (11.4 km) and 6000 ft (1828 m) elevation gain to 11,350 ft (3460m). Since it was windy up there we spent some time walking around looking for a somewhat sheltered campsite. The spot we picked was a bit sloped and John ended up moving his tent after night one because he was just slipping down in his tent too much. Exhausted from the effort we crawled into our tents early right after dinner (~18:00).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a windy and cold night (more for John than me since I had my winter sleeping bag) we got up to cloudy skies. We prepared our breakfast and headed towards Striped Mtn. Once we were able to see the slopes we would have to scale it became obvious that our chances of making this peak were slim. Too many very steep snowfields to cross. We started climbing anyway to see how far we could get [Note: hardly any of the Sierra peaks have trails]. At around 12,500 ft (3,800m) we called it a day, took a break, and turned back. We took our time to return to camp where we took a nap.
Later we went down the west side of Taboose Pass for a couple of hours of exploring. This gave us a chance to see Striped Mtn. from the “backside”. After another early dinner we were again in our tents just after 18:00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n