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Recommends...
 By R.J. Secor. The High Sierra hiking/climbing guidebook. Amazingly exhaustive. An indispensible trip planning aid.  By Paul Richins Jr.. Decent info, lots of good skiing ideas. Approaches/descents often imprecise--bring a map! |
Photos from around Dunderberg Peak, Hoover Wilderness, CA
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We ascended the Southwest Ridge route, which climbs 2800 feet from the Virginia Lakes parking area in about 1.5 horizontal miles. While the rocks on the route are very loose in places, consistent class 3 scrambling over fairly solid rocks awaits climbers who stick to the spine of the ridge.
We pulled into the parking area late on the night of the 16th and simply slept a few yards from the truck in a flat field of sagebrush. Mars and the moon put on a lovely evening show, as did the alpenglow from the cirque between Black Mountain and "South Peak", which was in turn beautifully reflected by the largest of the Virginia Lakes.
After the climb, we had lunch in Lee Vining, and ambitious plans to climb Mount Dana later that day were replaced by a refreshing swim in Tenaya Lake. Soon, we were back on the road for another 5 hours of rush hour vacation driving. Oh well, the reality of living in the Bay Area...
Kim had some interesting thoughts about the hike that I reproduce below...
It was a tough hike even though it was pretty short. I
was so sick of slogging through the uneven and sliding
rocks, I thought the peak was named "Dunderhead" after
all the Dunderheads who thought it would be a good
idea to try to get to the top. But actually it is
called DunderBERG peak. The view at the top was
definitely worth it. It is the highest peak in the
range so we could see a big picture view of the
mountain range. It was fun to be able to point out the
other peaks we had climbed and areas we had visited.
While we were there we saw two enormous brown birds.
Definitely raptors of some sort (thanks to mom for
that terminology), and doing some web research, we've
pretty much decided that they were Golden Eagles. They
were very big and moved fast, diving and doing
acrobatics. We had binoculars so could see them up
close but they moved very fast so it was difficult to
track them.
The hike down the peak was terrible. We didn't go back
down the same way we had come up, and it wasn't just
an easy scree ski. I felt unsure of my footing. Every
time I put my foot down, I asked myself "What is the
probability that this rock will move, and if it does
move, what's the likely outcome--a bit a small slide,
or an avalanche? I'm also pretty out of shape for the
higher altitude exertion so I think that effect my
psyche quite a bit. At one point I was down-climbing a
slightly tricky rock section, I had a hallucination
that Morgan was standing there saying, "You can do
it." It was very encouraging.
When we got to the bottom, it was beautiful again. The
lakes there are very blue and there weren't any
noisome mosquitoes. We soaked our legs in the water
then headed out.
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Department of Geophysics Stanford University |
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