talusdancers

… about a summer 2008 talusdancers trip. I’m hearing some rumblings.

Something up high in the neighborhood of the Minarets? Perhaps a west side trip further south - Kaweah Gap perhaps? (On to the east side, back the way we came, north to Kings Canyon, or a loopy route to Mineral King?)

August…

It disappeared, that’s what…

It had come down to three of us (Dan, Owen, and Ernie) in the end, but we were planning on doing the Talusdancers’ traditional end-of-season pack trip out of Tuolumne Meadows during the second weekend of October. The goal was - once again - Fletcher Lake, with a second-day adventure being a traverse of the ridge between Fletcher and Parsons Peaks. It would have been glorious!

But the weather was not glorious. This has been an odd early season in the Sierra. While it is not unusual to get a dusting or two of early snow in late September and early October, we’ve seen a series of early season Pacific storms pass through already. They have closed the main mid-Sierra passes several weekends in a row, though the roads have reopened within a day or two.

Although the actual snowfall in Yosemite on the weekend of our planned trip was truly trivial, the park service closed Tioga Pass Road for a day and a half. While some Talusdancers who planned to arrive early (Owen and Ernie) might have made it onto the trail before the closure, others (that would be me) would have been stopped way back by Crane Flat.

Sooo… now we’re spending time happily recalling the trips of the past season (for me these include a week near the Minarets, a week in the southern Sierra with the Talusdancers, a wonderful solo trip to Young Lakes, several late-season aspen-hunting expeditions, and more), dreaming of next year’s adventures (is anyone interested in Mt. McKinley NP?!), and planning for the upcoming ski season.

- Dan

Owen has posted his log of the Cottonwood to Shepherd Pass trip - with photographs!

I’ve posted the next installment of my descriptions of our August trip over at my dan’s outside web site: Crossing New Army Pass.

I’ve posted some more stuff from our August “Big Trip” over at my dan’s outside blog, including this description of our crossing of Shepherd Pass.

- Dan