Despite last year’s somewhat abortive trip to Brainard Lake (see trip report here), Tom Weedon still wants to come on a backpack trip with us (he must also think that being sweaty, smelly and knackered is a laugh!). So I’ve picked out one of my favourite hikes - Alta Peak, which we’ve done a couple of times before and has a great effort-reward ratio (i.e. spectacular views without a preposterously long/hard hike). A friend of Catherine’s from work - Derek - also joins us. He did the Alta Peak hike in late season last year and is keen to do it again. We meet up at our place in Altadena at 7pm on Friday night and head out for Sequoia, stopping only for a much appreciated pitstop at In-Out Burger in Bakersfield. We find a spot in the Lodgepole campsite sometime after midnight and crash.

Next morning we splurge and have a great buffet breakfast at the Wuksachi lodge. The Full Monty - eggs, bacon, sausages, french toast, fruit. Plus waiters and a nice dining room. Even I have to admit it beats plain oatmeal in the parking lot! We gather all our kit at the Wolverton trailhead and I get to seriously load up my new Gregory backpack for the first time: definitely seems lighter and feels like a great fit. We set of for the usually rather uninteresting, heavily forested, 2.7 mile stretch to Panther Gap. Even though the woods aren’t that exciting, there are several patches of incredibly beautiful green meadows alongside the stream and its not long before we come up to Panther Gap and are treated to an epic view of the Great Western Divide. What makes it particularly cool is that there’s a solid cloud layer below us at about 6000 feet so it already feels like we’re floating way above the rest of the world.

The traverse across the steep south slopes to Mehrten Meadows and the Alta Peak trail junction also goes relatively fast, and we bump into a few marmots and a couple of people along the way. Already the streams cascading down the mountainside are much smaller than they were in late May last year - I can imagine that by August this is a pretty dry place. At the Alta Peak junction we break for a long lunch.Tom & Derek purify a fresh load of water and I cook up soup and stuff. Tom’s brought along a great wedge of Tofu cheese. He seems to think its great but the rest of us pronounce it completely inedible. (Note to self: never buy tofu cheese. Yuk. I reckon my boot sole liners would taste better.) When we’ve eaten and rested for about an hour we cache our packs, ram all the food in the bear canister to deter the marmots from chewing our packs, and start the two thousand foot climb up to the top of Alta Peak. Once we round the base of Tharp’s Rock we start getting fantastic views of the Great Western Divide and in an hour or so we’re passing the last few wizened junipers and are slogging our way the long snowslope that leads to the summit slabs. This snowy section always seems to take longer than you feel it should, but eventually I clamber over the gritty textured slabs of rock that form the top of 11,200 foot Alta Peak.

The views all around are very cool. Way below to the west the sea of cloud stretches out across the Central Valley and laps up into the mountain valleys that now look like sea coves full of white fluff. Covering the eastern horizon are endless rows and rows of High Sierra Peaks, all beginning to look a little bare as they’ve lost most of their snow. Fifteen hundred feet directly below the peak is turquoise Peak Lake, now largely clear of ice but still surrounded by gleaming slopes completely covered in snow. I pull the old ammunition box out of its crevice and start filling in the summit register, and soon after Catherine, Derek and Tom arrive at the top to share the epic views. We hang out on the top there for about half an hour, take too many pictures and try and spot significant peaks like Mt. Whitney. Yet again Alta peak has come up trummps. It’s a great peak because it’s relatively easy to reach (only about 7 miles from trailhead to summit, though it is a 4000 foot climb) and can be done in a weekend. Yet it feels like a real adventure (especially earlier in the season due to the snow) and gives really superb views of the whole Central Sierra.

Time’s moving on though so we start the hike down around 4pm. We investigate the steeper chute we used last year but now it doesn’t have much snow left in it so opt to go down the same way we came up. It takes about an hour to get down and then another 45 minutes or so to repack our loads and hike along to Alta Meadow. We pitch camp in our normal place some way down the slope at the edge of the trees. There’s no-one else here - we have the whole meadow completely to ourselves. We aren’t even bothered by bears (actually, I’m a bit disappointed about that, we haven’t seen bears for ages). Tom and I purify water and I’m totally chuffed with the speed of our new Pur Voyageur Purifier. It rocks. Back at camp Derek and Tom are totally zonked so they crash in their tent for a bit as Catherine and I get all the grub for supper going. We end up having a pretty good meal of soup, Indian stuff and Lavash flat bread - great trekking food. We’re all pretty knackered so get into our bags soon after, falling asleep soon after dark.

Next morning I get totally blinded by the sun. As usual, Catherine and I are sleeping outside and as I turn east and pull my head out of the sack I find myself staring right into the newly risen sun. Very, very bright indeed! We do oatmeal, pack up and hike back down at a reasonable speed. It’s a pretty reasonable grade going down so it’s easy to chat while we’re walking. Derek twisted his knee yesterday but he seems to get down pretty well despite some pain. After encountering a couple of immense Marmots and stopping once for a last set of views at Panther Gap we get back to the truck at 1pm and by 2 are chowing down monster burritos and the classic "Taco Titanic" at our favourite little Mexican in Three Rivers. We’re back home by 6pm. Great weekend, plus the gearhead in me is pleased the new gear (backpack, purifier) worked so well!