When I was in the Owens Valley this Spring, looking up at the Sierra’s eastern front, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t hiked in my favorite mountains for about 30 years. So this summer I substituted a 10 day backpacking trip for my annual week-long Cycle Oregon cycling tour.

Teaming up with Bend friend, Andy, we spent a couple weeks planning and outfitting ourselves for the endeavor. 12+ pounds of photo equipment and 3+ pounds of required bear canisters spurred each of us to “invest” in new, lighter equipment; and we got the weight of each of our packs down to just over 50 pounds. After a 10 hour drive down and a night’s stay at Mammoth Lakes, we were able to secure a wilderness permit for the same day, caught the Devils Postpile shuttle into Agnew Meadows, and hiked 8-ish miles up the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River and Shadow Creek into Lake Ediza. The wildflowers were so amazing, and explorations so fun, that we spent 6 days there. As a result, I was able to explore the area in more breadth and depth than my previous 4-5 visits, combined. Other than a thunderstorm the last full day, we had hot, clear days and warm nights.

The trip’s photo galleries can be found here: Ritter Range Galleries

The areas that were explored around Lake Ediza were:

• Lake Ediza — this was John Muir and Ansel Adams’ favorite Sierra lake, and mine too. It has it all: beautiful water ringed by green meadows and forest, set at the base of the rugged, majestic Minarets and the duo of Mt. Ritter & Banner Peak. And this year was a great wildflower year, which we hit exactly at peak bloom (about 3 weeks early this warm, dry year). I was amazed at how little the lake had changed in the last 30+ years — the meadow hadn’t encroached into the lake, the willows hadn’t much enlarged their meadow footprint, and its popularity hadn’t caused egregious wear and tear. One noticed change was marked deterioration of the ancillary trail along the lake’s north shore — rock falls had made this route pretty much impassable while carrying heavy packs.

• Nydiver Lakes — This set of 3 small lakes, and some nearby tarns, lies above and just to the north of Ediza. To get there I climbed up Ediza’s NW inlet stream, full of beautiful falls and cascades, to a desolate tarn nestled right at the base of Mt. Ritter & Banner Peak, then went up to the lakes themselves, and returned to Ediza via their outlet stream down to the Shadow Creek trail back to Ediza. We had hoped to later camp at the lakes, but this day hike proved the route too steep & rugged for us carrying heavy packs. I still would love to do this so that I could capture this area’s stunning vistas in early & late light.I did have a “holy sh*t” moment while at the base of Mt. Ritter — remembering three nearby close calls in 1971. In that year we climbed Ritter from Thousand Island & Catherine Lakes, via the north glacier to the Ritter/Banner saddle, and up Ritter’s north face to the top. While climbing the north face, a very large rock came loose as I used it to pull myself up. I warned David below me to watch out as it (but not me) tumbled down to the glacier below. After reaching the summit, we realized that it would be too difficult to descend the way we came. So we came down Ritter’s south side, glissading down its SE glacier and taking the long route around the base of Banner, back to Thousand Island during a severe thunderstorm.

  The second “tight spot” was below the SE glacier when we decided to stay high, contouring along ledges at the base of Ritter and the Ritter/Banner saddle. We did this so to avoid dropping down toward Nydiver Lakes and having to re-climb around Banner. However, the chosen ledges at one point narrowed to only a few inches wide, with a huge vertical exposure. Somehow we mustered the courage to tightrope across. It was this section that I was looking up at during this trip and wondering how the hell we did it.

  The last 1971 close call occurred a little later in the above described day when I heard David scream. I immediately whipped around and saw him being showered in icy snow. A very large rock had fallen off of Banner (probably displaced by a lightning strike) and had hit the snowfield only feet away.

• Cirque Meadows, Steams, & Tarn SW of Ediza — I spent two days exploring this area, which I hadn’t visited before. It is a beautiful, wide glacial cirque meadow crisscrossed by streams flowing down from the northern segment of the Minarets. And it contained the best display of flowering heather I have seen. At its top is an amazing small tarn set at the base of Leonard Minerat. And its SW ridge has an outstanding view down on Iceberg Lake (see below).

• Iceberg Lake — Early one morning I climbed up to indescribable Iceberg Lake, set at the foot of the Minarets’ middle section to the south of Ediza. There I found another spectacular wildflower display, but unfortunately I missed sunrise by about 15 minutes. So I spent the next morning there as well (darn :>) ). I noticed another change from 30+ years ago — a large rock fall had choked its outlet so that the lake level is about 10-15 feet higher and its outlet is no longer through a shear-sided rock chute.

We then moved camp to the north and finished the trip with two additional campsites:

• Garnet Lake — In previous visits, I had only quickly hiked past Garnet Lake and was excited to now have the opportunity to stop and explore. The lake is set in a relatively narrow, shallow valley framing the eastern face of Banner Peak. Our campsite on its southern shore was a great vantage point for sunset and sunrise shots.

• Thousand Island Lake — This lake is a popular stop on the John Muir Trail, and deservedly so. It is a large lake set in a broad, shallow basin, filled with an uncountable number of small islands (maybe a thousand if you could count every boulder), and with Banner Peak looming at its SW end. And we found a fabulous elevated campsite overlooking all of this. And, once again, the wildflowers were putting on a show. The weather did take a turn for the worst — warm & humid air came up from Mexico and gave us two days of clouds, one of the days mostly filled with rain. And, on the last day hiking out to civilization, we had smokey skies from a fire on the Sierra’s west side.

All in all, a wonderful trip … already thinking about the Sierras backpacking trip next summer!