Shannon and I planned a weekend getaway to take advantage of the relative lack of snow and late season accessibility. We planned to climb a couple of peaks in the Central Sierra above Fresno: Spanish Mountain and Three Sisters. First on the agenda was Spanish Mountain, a relatively low summit in the far western portion of the John Muir Wilderness that stands very high above the confluence of the Middle and North Forks of the Kings River.
So, on Friday night we packed up our car and joined the mass nightly exodus of the Bay Area. There was an accident or some other kind of fuckup on Altamont Pass, so Google Maps navigated us over Patterson Pass which was quite an adventure in the dark and the fog. We switched drivers not long after as I was tired by having driven almost 2 hours just to get to the Central Valley. Shannon took over the wheel and negotiated the traffic and potholes on 99 South before we switched again near one of the reservoirs as I took the final, mostly empty section up past Shaver Lake and south on Dinkey Creek Road. We camped off the road just south of Wishon Reservoir, setting up and going to bed just after midnight.
We were not eager to get up early the next day and we had set out tent up in the shade of a pine tree, so we weren’t awoken by the sun either. I got up at about 8:30 and brewed up some coffee. By 9:30 we were both up, caffeinated, and fed. We packed up our things and drove back down the road a half mile or so to the Crown Valley Trailhead to start the hike.
There’s a trail / usetrail all the way to the summit and the satellite picture the week before showed there was some snow near the summit, but more exposed rocks and dirt. So we prepared little for this outing, having climbed many more difficult peaks. We also didn’t feel the urge to set out particularly early, hitting the trail at about 10. Our math put us back at the car between 4 and 5 in the best case, so we figured there was a good chance we’d be in the dark at the end of the hike today. That used to make me pretty nervous and uncomfortable, but after enough unexpected night hikes you get used to it and it’s even more tolerable when you expect it from the beginning.
We set out up the trail, across a faint creek, and soon reached the first trail junction of the day. There was a bunch of deadfall here and some very thorny bushes, so it took us a few minutes to get going the correct way. But we did, and soon we reached the first crossing of Rancheria Creek. It took us a few minutes to find a way across that wouldn’t require wading through the very cold water, but after a delicate rock hop we were across and continued up. The second crossing was much easier as the creek had divided below and a log spanned its now narrower width.
We soon reached the Statham Meadow inholding. I don’t know the history behind this specific inholding but from what I could read, the John Muir Wilderness was expanded sometime in the 80s to include areas around here and there was likely this lot of private property that the USFS couldn’t convince the owner to sell. It didn’t appear to be in use when we went by, but maybe they come up in the summertime or something?
We accidentally followed the wrong trail branch past Statham Meadow and had to cut across country up to the main trail. From here we continued on to Spanish Lake. The trail was getting very difficult to follow by this point with many braids that would often peter out into nothing. We spent probably half of the distance from the upper creek crossing to Spanish Lake off of the proper trail, though the travel was easy enough that we didn’t worry too much.
We passed Spanish Lake, which seemed to be more of a marsh and continued on. Beyond here we completely lost the trail for a while and wandered around the wrong side of one of the marshes before Spanish Pass.
Lake 8632. After passing around this lake we cut back to the trail only to be thrown off it again by a flooded section. On the other side of the other small, marshy lake we just gave up entirely and hiked cross country. The north-facing faint gully up towards Spanish Pass had a good amount of snow in it, so we veered east where the terrain seemed to get more afternoon sun. We were mostly able to avoid the snow up to Spanish Pass.
The peaks east of Spanish Mountain from Spanish Pass. Seeing only a vague semblance of a trail and a bunch of snow up ahead, we headed off cross country for a gully that climbed up to the ridge of Spanish Mountain. The travel was easy to the base of the gully.
As we started to get higher, a fantastic view of Mount Goddard and the White Divide opened up to our east. Soon, we reached the base of the gully just north of Spanish Mountain at about 9,400’. We initially started up the east side of this gully, hiking mostly over snow. However, the snow had a terrible windcrust on it and we punched through to a foot or so of sugary snow underneath. Our calves were getting terribly cut up by the ice and our shoes were getting filled with snow. We thought it looked not too far up to the summit, but after 20 minutes of very slow and painful travel we reassessed. Instead of continuing up the miserable windcrusted snow slope, we crossed to the other side of the creek, which had a slightly more south aspect and climbed up mostly sand to the saddle between Spanish Mountain and Peak 9850.
By the time we reached the saddle it was about 2:30. We knew we would have to hike in the dark a bit, but we didn’t want to have to deal with the snow in the dark as well. So we set a turnaround time of 3PM. We continued up towards the summit, at first on the climber’s left, but after finding that equally problematic with the snow we tried the likely sunnier climber’s right side. It was better but still not easy.
Looking north from near the summit, there was a beautiful inversion capping Tule Fog in the Central Valley. We were able to mostly climb rocks and soil to the summit, but had to cross occasional patches of the difficult snow too.
Shannon climbing towards Spanish Mountain.
We reached the summit just minutes before our cutoff time and took a brief break. The summit view was outstanding in all directions.
Looking south towards Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park.
Southwest over the Middle Fork of the Kings River towards the Sierra crest.
Despite the relatively low elevation of Spanish Mountain, its position meant we could see much of the High Sierra, including the three major groups of the Palisades just beyond the White Divide.
Southeast again over Tehipite Valley. In this direction is one of the deepest canyons in North America, from the 10,000’ summit of Spanish Mountain, Kings Canyon drops to about 2,000’ at the Kings River far below, a depth of nearly 8,000’. As a contrast, the Grand Canyon is about 6,000’ deep. Hells Canyon on the Idaho/Oregon border takes the crown at a bit over 8,000’.
I brought our 200mm telephoto camera lens too and was able to get some good pictures of the high peaks to our south and east. We could clearly see the Kaweahs to the south, and Sawtooth Peak poked out to the right.
The northernmost portion of the Great Western Divide, dominated by Mount Brewer.
Split Mountain and vicinity.
A mostly-obscured Middle Palisade and Normal Clyde Peak.
North Palisade with Mount Sill on the right and Thunderbolt Peak and Mount Winchell to the left.
Mount Goddard and Mount Darwin behind Mount Reinstein.
To the north the highest peaks in Yosemite and the Mammoth Lakes area were even visible. Mount Ritter and Banner Peak can be seen at right and Mount Lyell and Maclure are at left.
There was also a beautiful mixture of fog and haze over the Central Valley that made for some nice photos. After a pretty quick photo and snack break, we headed back north off of the summit.
Looking north towards Yosemite on the descent. The way down was much easier than the way up. Having learned the way not to go, we stuck to the west of the north side of the mountain and then the north side of the gully avoiding the snow. There were still a few sections of snow to negotiate, but nothing like on the way up.
Looking towards the White Divide on the way down.
We found a short section of bear footprints in a patch of snow near Spanish Pass. It was the only sign of life we saw all day beside some squirrels and birds.
Looking back at Spanish Mountain in the fading daylight. The gully we climbed is at the right, kind of obscured by the trees. We made our way down from Spanish Pass, avoiding the snowy sections as we had on the way up.
Mount Goddard through the trees. We negotiated the way down Spanish Pass to the marshy lakes without incident. We took a different route back around them sticking to the west side and avoiding the swampy parts of the trail where possible. This involved some very mild bushwhacking and soon we had completely lost the trail. It was getting dark as we reached the small rise between Spanish Lake and the marshy lakes so we went to quite a bit of effort to find the trail again, not wanting to have to navigate through the forest by headlamp. With the help of Gaia, we found the trail again where we stopped to have a drink of water and don our headlamps. We still had about 5 miles to hike.
The first couple of miles in the dark were fine. We put our heads down and tried very hard to follow the trail, which was a bit easier when we paid close attention. When we dropped down to Statham Meadow, by which time it was completely dark, the temperature plummeted and we put on almost all of the extra clothes we had. It must have been in the mid-20s, and still before 6PM!
We continued moving as quickly as we could, not wanting to stop and freeze. But we had to take a couple of snack breaks. At the last of these, about a quarter mile before the upper crossing of Rancheria Creek, I started shivering almost as soon as we stopped, so it was only a minute or so. When we got up to go again, I lost the trail in a maze of deadfall. Not wanting to get too cold, I continued moving, eventually finding the trail again. But after a minute or so, I noticed something amiss, we were climbing up hill again. I quickly checked the map and realized I had started walking back the way we had come, away from the trailhead. Whoops! We turned around and followed the trail to the creek crossings.
The first creek crossing was easy again, then there was a longer-than-I-remembered stretch to the second one during which I worried about the somewhat more difficult crossing ahead, especially if it had gained some ice in the sub-freezing temperatures. We arrived and between the moving air and the low-lying creekbed it was bitterly cold. Fortunately, we found a much easier route across than the way we had come and made quick work of it and then up and out of the creekbed on the other side. The last mile passed uneventfully. We had much less trouble negotiating the deadfall near the trail junction after having put up with much getting lost over the course of the day.
We reached the trailhead at about 7:30 after two and a half hours of hiking in the dark and just under 10 hours total. Given the events of the day, we were not optimistic about climbing Three Sisters the next day, given that it was 500 feet higher and appeared snowier on the satellite picture, so we scrapped that plan. We drove 50’ across the Forest Service road into a large staging area for horse riders across from the trailhead and set about setting up camp and building a fire. Within an hour we were much more comfortable.
The next morning we had a lazy morning, sleeping in and enjoying several cups of the nice instant coffee we had brought along. We decided to just head home and stop at a grove of sequoias we had driven past on the way in and somewhere else for an easy run.
We had the McKinley Grove of giant Sequoias to ourselves and spent some time wandering around, photographing and enjoying these impressive trees.
After maybe 45 minutes we continued down the road, stopping at another Forest Service road for an easy run before driving back across the Central Valley and home.
While we hadn’t managed our original objective (a rather common occurrence), we had still had a great, adventurous weekend out exploring a new area. While we hadn’t thought much of Spanish Mountain before, we now understood that if one is willing to do the long walk through the forest, there is an incredible view in all directions to be had from its prominent summit.