Mount Florence / Electra Peak / Rodgers Peak / Foerster Peak
Ascents of Mount Florence (West Slope, class 2), Electra Peak (North Ridge, class 2), Rodgers Peak (Southeast Face, class 2), Electra Peak (again – North Ridge, class 2) and Foerster Peak (North Ridge, class 2-3), with René Renteria, September 10-15, 2021.
Timeline:
This trip was supposed to take us over Pine Creek Pass and into the Seven Gables area, but our permit was cancelled due to the September 2021 closure of all California national forests. National parks, however, were still open. I tried to get some Kings Canyon permits but many trailheads begin in the national forest and my permit reservations were all summarily cancelled. That left Yosemite. I still had a few peaks to climb in the southeastern part of the park, so I applied for various permits, finally landing one with an entry at the Sunrise trailhead. This was not the optimal approach to the peaks I was aiming for, but it would have to do. On September 9, I drove to Yosemite to pick up my permit, and René arrived in Mammoth from San Antonio that evening.
September 10, 2021. Anticipating a long day, we left Mammoth early, dropped René's rental car off in Tuolumne Meadows where we planned to finish our trip, and drove on to Tenaya Lake. We set out from the Sunrise Lakes trailhead at 9:32 under a thick cloud cover, with packs full of food for six days. We stopped at the Sunrise High Sierra Camp for lunch at noon, and then took a cross-country shortcut southeast through a steep, dense forest to save a couple of miles of trail hiking. After that, the flat or downhill trail miles to Merced Lake went by quickly. We reached the Merced Lake High Sierra Camp at 16:09 and took another nice break there. Then it was on and up to Lewis Creek, where we hoped to find a nice campsite at the base of the west slope of Mount Florence. We found a suitable flat spot around 19:00, had dinner and went to bed early. (A 9:25 hour day, 8:06 hours moving, 16.70 miles, 3,985 feet of elevation gain).
September 11, 2021. Our plan was to climb Mount Florence and then move camp closer to the next peaks on our list – Electra, Rodgers and Foerster. We left camp at 7:57 and hiked up steep slopes south of camp to gain the West Slope of Mount Florence. We stayed relatively close to the northern edge of the slope, past forests, meadows and finally onto the ridge directly south of Lake 10,541. We reached the summit at 12:08. The views were enhanced by the dissipating clouds that lingered from a storm that had poured heavy rain all over the Sierra two days prior. We lingered on the summit for about 50 minutes, headed partway down the West Ridge, and then directly down to Lake 10,541 along a route described by Bob Burd in one of his trip reports. That was short and easy, and we took a break at the lake taking in the still alpine scenery. We then hiked toward Florence Lake and on to camp, reaching it at 16:27. We still planned to hike a few miles toward the Lyell Fork, so we packed up and set out to rejoin the Isberg Pass trail. We were relieved to find water flowing in some of the streams that cross this trail, and around 18:45 we found a nice campsite in the woods just south of the Cony Crags. (A 10:46 hour day, 9:17 hours moving, 11.10 miles, 4,975 feet of elevation gain).
September 12, 2021. This turned out to be mostly a rest day. We packed up camp and started hiking at 8:08. We followed the Isberg Pass trail into the drainage of the Lyell Fork of the Merced River, and left the trail there to head cross country up the river toward its headwaters. We met a lone female hiker who told us she thought that lake basin was "ugly" (it was, in fact, magnificent). Hiking up the Lyell Fork, taking care to stay left (north) of it, we reached Lake 10,217 at 11:35. We found a comfortable, wind-sheltered campsite on its western shore, and set up the tent. This was an ideal location at the base of Mount Ansel Adams, with fantastic views of Foerster Peak, Mount Rodgers, and the ridge connecting it to Electra Peak (“Hailstorm Peak”). We had lunch in the shade of a clump of trees near camp, and I took a nap while René went for a dip in the lake. By then it was clear we could use some rest from the first two long days of hiking, so we decided to defer an ascent of Foerster Peak until the fifth day, and to get some rest in preparation for Electra and Rodgers the next day. It was a leisurely afternoon in camp, followed by a dinner high in calories. (A 3:29 hour day, 3:17 hours moving, 5.40 miles, 1,500 feet of elevation gain).
September 13, 2021. We had big plans for the fourth day: to climb up the West and North ridges of Electra Peak, traverse to the summit of Rodgers Peak, descend its West Face, and return to camp. We did not know much about the West Face of Rodgers Peak – only a single sentence in Secor’s book saying it was class 3. At any rate we set out from camp at 7:19 and hiked up the lakes basin to the base of the West Ridge of Electra. The highlight of that approach was walking through a dark, foreboding gorge separating Lake 10,702 from Lake 10,999. Above that, we were on easy terrain up the West Ridge, which basically led us to Vernon Pass, at the base of Electra’s North Ridge. Then it was a very short hop to a great summit with an old-fashioned SRC aluminum register box (the box features an engraved memorial to Mark Hoffman; Hoffman died in 1988 in a rock slide on Devil’s Crag #8, as recounted by Robin Ingraham Jr.). We reached the top of Electra Peak at 9:47.
Next, we headed down the steep talus slopes just north of Electra Peak, to Lake 11,815. Our plan was to skirt the ridge separating Electra and Rodgers, at a constant elevation on its eastern side. We managed to hold almost exactly at the 11,800 feet level – over slabs and talus - till we reached the Southeast Face of Rodgers Peak. We found a nice ramp on that face that took us to the crest of the Southeast Ridge. We reached the summit of Rodgers Peak at 12:58 and enjoyed the great view of the Ritter-Banner group, the Lyell-Maclure group, etc. We then tried to find a class 3 way down the West Face. René went first, on the left side of the face, down a steep ridge. He soon reached a steep, loose drop, followed by another one. Staring at the west face proper from the ridge, all we could see was loose, steep terrain with no obvious class 3 passage. This was a dead end, so we backtracked a bit to a point below the summit. There I spotted a possible way down on the right side of the face. We were able to go down a bit father on that side, just below a steep ridge, over horrendously loose terrain. But I was quickly stumped by a steep drop blocking access to the central portion of the face – which itself looked just as loose and steep as before (lacking helmets, it would have been a bad idea to proceed). So we backtracked to the summit. There we saw a 2006 entry by Tina Bowman that simply read “Up west side - yuck”, and another by Doug Mantle and Nile Sorenson, from 2008, that read “West side route? Huh? We traversed to NW; up ridge; no way up true W side”.
We retraced our steps almost exactly to Lake 11,815, reaching it at 15:50. After another long break at that lake, including a late lunch, we hiked up the easy talus to Vernon Pass. At the base of the North Ridge of Electra, I proposed that we climb it again, to catch the afternoon light on the surrounding peaks. René had a nosebleed on the summit, but things went smoothly otherwise. We retraced our steps to camp, down the West Ridge of Electra, to Lake 10,999, down the ominous gorge, and finally over slabs and meadows in the gorgeous evening light, reaching camp at 19:09. (A 11:50 hour day, 10:21 hours moving, 8.90 miles, 3,655 feet of elevation gain).
September 14, 2021. Since we had passed on climbing Foerster Peak two days prior, this ascent was going to be on the menu for the morning of day five. We left camp at 8:14 and headed up the easy talus to the hanging valley just southeast of Foerster Peak. From there we headed west to Foerster Ridge, and then up the North Ridge of Foerster Peak. In terms of climbing quality, this was the highlight of the trip (class 2-3). We reached the summit at 10:08 and were greeted to outstanding views in all directions. We left after a half hour, and opted to descend the peak’s East Face, to a point that would allow us to rejoin the hanging valley. The latter descent was steep but short, and we took a quick break at a tarn in the middle of the valley at 11:48. From there it was a quick talus hop back to camp (12:25). Upon arriving we saw an elderly couple on a dayhike from their camp in the meadows below, our first human encounter in over 48 hours. We had lunch, did laundry in a nearby tarn, and packed up camp to begin our long return to Tuolumne Meadows. We set out at 15:02 and hiked at a good pace down the Lyell Fork. We rejoined the trail and continued on as far as we could. We found a nice camp with water northeast of the Cony Crags and settled down for our last night out. (A 7:43 hour day, 7:05 hours moving, 9.25 miles, 2,700 feet of elevation gain).
September 15, 2021. This was an uneventful day. We left camp at 8:24 and hiked down to the junction with the Vogelsang Pass trail, then up that trail to Vogelsang Pass (11:23), down to Vogelsang Lake where we had lunch and a footbath (11:40), then on to Vogelsang High Sierra Camp and down the trail to the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River. We were back at René’s car at 15:28, and made it back to Mammoth Lakes in time for dinner at the Mammoth Tavern - a fitting capstone to a great trip. (A 7:07 hour day, 6:00 hours moving, 14.30 miles, 2,270 feet of elevation gain).
Trip totals: 50:20 total hours, 44:06 moving hours, 65.53 miles, 19,100 feet of elevation gain.