Sierra South. Mike White
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advance of your entry, on a first-come, first served basis.
If you plan to begin your trip from one of these trailheads, especially on the weekend, you would be wise to reserve your permit in advance. A reservation for a permit is not the same as the permit itself. Only a few agencies mail you the actual permit; most require that you pick up the permit near the trailhead entry. The purpose of the reservation is to guarantee you’ll get a permit for that trailhead on the day you wish. Where no quotas apply, the only reason to reserve your permit by mail is to allow you to pick it up during off hours.
Maps and Profiles
Today’s Sierra traveler is confronted by a bewildering array of maps, and it doesn’t take much experience to learn that no single map fulfills all needs. There are topographic maps, base maps (US Forest Service), shaded relief maps (National Park Service), artistically drawn representational maps (California Department of Fish and Game), aerial-photograph maps, geologic maps, three-dimensional relief maps, soil-vegetation maps, and compact discs containing five levels of topographic maps already pieced together for you as well as software for drawing routes. Each map has different information to impart, and it’s a good idea to use several of these maps in your planning.
For trip-planning purposes, the trailheads in this book include their own gray-scale map or maps, which show all trips and are based on the United States Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps or USDA Forest Service wilderness maps. (More information about these maps.)
A useful map series for planning is the USDA Forest Service topographic series for most individual wilderness areas. The scale of most maps of this series is 1:63,360 (1 inch = 1 mile), which is very close to that of the former USGS 15’ series (1:62,500), and each conveniently covers the entire wilderness area on one map. However, you may find these maps a bit bulky for the trail.
Most backpackers prefer to use a topographic (topo) map with finer detail than the above overview/planning maps. Hikers typically prefer the USGS 7.5’ series, where the elevation is usually shown in 40-foot contour intervals (although some 7.5’ topos show 80-foot contour intervals or even 20-meter contour intervals) and the scale is 1:24,000 or about 2.625 inches per mile.
Wilderness Press still publishes and regularly updates a few 15’ topos for some areas covered by Sierra South. These Wilderness Press 15’ topos include indexes of the place names on them and are printed on waterproof, tear-resistant plastic. If any one or more of these maps covers all or part of a given trip, their titles appear in boldface at the beginning of the trip under the section Topo. Unlike ordinary USGS topos, these maps show details of the adjacent national forest or park for your greater convenience in trip-planning. Wilderness Press still publishes the following 15’ quads that apply to Sierra South: Merced Peak, Devils Postpile, Mt. Abbott, and Mt. Pinchot.
You can also use commercially available software to print out your own topographic maps at your choice of scale and detail. Protect these printouts if the ink is prone to run.
How and Where to Get Your Maps
Order Wilderness Press 15’ topos and other maps as well as books directly from Wilderness Press online at www.wildernesspress.com or by phone at 800-443-7227.
Backpacking stores and some bookstores—especially those near popular hiking areas—carry at least the topographic maps for hikes in their areas as well as the software required to print your own. USGS topographic maps and US Forest Service maps are available at many ranger stations and at stations that issue wilderness permits.
USGS’s online store sells USGS maps at store.usgs.gov. Or contact the USGS Western Region office at 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025; 650-853-8300.
How to Use This Book
Terms This Book Uses
Destination/UTM Coordinates: This new edition provides UTM coordinates for GPS users. When the datum is from the field, we note this by including “(field)” after the datum. Otherwise, the datum is from mapping software. Because these data are all UTM data with the appropriate meters east (mE) and meters north (mN), we don’t repeat those labels but show UTM data in this form: 11S 395115 4034251.
Trip Type: This book classifies a trip as one of four types. An out-and-back trip goes out to a destination and returns the way it came. A loop trip goes out by one route and returns by another with relatively little or no retracing of the same trail. A semiloop trip has an out-and-back part and a loop part; the loop part may occur anywhere along the way, and if it’s in the middle, there are two out-and-back parts. A shuttle trip starts at one trailhead and ends at another; usually, the trailheads are too far apart for you to walk between them, so you will need to leave a car at the ending (take-out) trailhead, have someone pick you up there, or rely on California’s scanty and ill-organized public transportation to get back to your starting (put-in) trailhead.
Best Season: Deciding when in the year is the best time for a particular trip is a difficult task because of yearly variations. Low early-season temperatures and mountain shadows often keep some of the higher passes closed until well into August. Early snows have been known to whiten alpine country in late July and August. Some of the trips described here are low-country ones, offered specifically for the itchy hiker who, stiff from a winter’s inactivity, is searching for a warm-up excursion. These trips are labeled early, a period that extends roughly from late May to early July. Mid is from early July to the end of August, and late is from then to early October.
Pace: For each trip, we give the number of days you’d spend hiking at the trip’s described pace—leisurely, moderate, or strenuous—as well as the number of layover days (below) you might want to take. Since this book is written for the average backpacker, we chose to describe most trips on either a leisurely or a moderate basis, depending on where the best overnight camping places were along the route. We call a few trips strenuous. A leisurely pace lets hikers absorb more of the sights, smells, and “feel” of the country they have come to see.
Layover Days: These are days when you’ll want to remain camped at a particular site so you can dayhike to see other beautiful places around the area or enjoy some adventures like peakbagging. The number of layover days you take and where are purely personal choices, to be balanced with how much time you have and how much food you can carry. Our trip descriptions will help you pick where and when you want to take layover days.
Total Mileage: The trips in this book range in length between 5 and 110 miles, and many trips can be shortened or extended, based on your interest and time.
Measuring distances in the backcountry is more an art than a science. We use decimal fractions for indicating distances, but don’t imagine that we measured them to the tenths and hundredths of miles. The numbers represent our best estimates of distance based on techniques like the time it took us to get from point to point. You can’t represent thirds accurately as decimal fractions, so we use 0.3 for one third and 0.6 for two thirds.
Campsites: Campsites are labeled poor, fair, good, excellent, or, occasionally, Spartan, which usually means an above-timberline site with few amenities, much exposure, and breathtaking scenery. The criteria for assigning these labels were amount of use, immediate surroundings, general scenery, presence of vandalism, availability of water, kind of ground cover, and recreational potential—angling, side trips, swimming, etc. Camping is forbidden on meadows and other vegetated areas and within a certain distance of any stream or lake. You will be informed of these rules for your areas when you get your wilderness permit. “Packer campsite” indicates a semi-permanent camp (usually constructed by packers for the “comfort of their clients”) characterized by things like nailed-plank table or benches, nails in the surrounding trees, and/or a large, rock fireplace.
Be careful to oberve all camping and fishing