05.14.07
Posted in Sierra Nevada, Background at 10:53 pm by Dan Jensen
The Hockett Trail provided a further advantage, which was utilized more and more as time went on. This feature was a cutoff over Coyote Pass that shortened the trip across the Sierra substantially.
The Hockett Trail was blazed during the Civil War, but to fight another war, against the Indians of Owens Valley. This is why it was also called the Fort Independence Trail. Originally, this trail was conceived for pack trains rather than horsemen and hikers, so it skirted around the Great Western Divide rather than crossing the great barrier. The route, however, made a crossing of the Great Western Divide feasible, not by way of rocky ridges, but by ascending the forested slopes along Rifle Creek.
Though this cutoff was a difficult one, it was not particularly hazardous, and was known to be used commonly by horsemen as late as the 1970s.
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Posted in Sierra Nevada, Background at 10:50 pm by Dan Jensen
The southernmost 12,000-foot peak in the Sierra Nevada is Olancha Peak, also the southernmost 11,000-foot peak, and one of the three southernmost 10,000-foot peaks of the range. At this latitude, the Sierra has a nearly perfect north-south orientation. The three divides, the Western Divide, the Great Western Divide, and the Sierra Crest, each have their southernmost 10,000-foot peaks at the same latitude (36° 15’ 50”):
Olancha Peak (Sierra Crest): 12,123’
Angora Mountain (Great Western Divide): 10,202’
Maggie Mountain (Western Divide): 10,042’
This is the southern terminus of the High Sierra.
South of these peaks, each of the three divides drops considerably, yet there is no easy way across the range north of Tehachapi Summit. The range continues to be rugged and there is progressively less reason to cross the range as one proceeds toward the southern end of the Sierra. The closer one gets to Tehachapi, the less reason there is to bother with a Sierra crossing.
For good reason, the first trails across the Southern Sierra kept south of the High Sierra, but there were problems with this strategy.
In avoiding the High Sierra, The Dennison Trail and Jordan Trail both crossed two canyons of the Tule River. The Hockett Trail, also known as the Fort Independence Trail, avoided the rugged Tule River watershed entirely by following the South Fork Kaweah River to the Little Kern. This route climbed to over 9800 feet, yet quickly became the preferred route to Trout Meadows, the grand junction of the Southern Sierra. It was difficult until the snow melted, but once most of the snow cleared from the popular trail it was an easier way to go. Above 8800 feet, the route is free of steep slopes, so even with some snow, it is rather easy going.
Beyond Trout Meadows, the Jordan Trail and Dennison Trail encountered another difficulty: the Kern River. Directly east of Trout Meadows, Kern Flat offers a natural fording point, but it is less than ideal, particularly in spring when the river can be treacherous. The head of the Jordan party, Captain John Jordan, drowned at Kern Flat while returning west to announce the opening of his trail.
The Hockett Trail, alternatively, followed the Kern Canyon north to a better ford, north of what was once named Volcano Creek, now Golden Trout Creek. The river has less volume upstream of Golden Trout Creek and Coyote Creek, and better yet, it splits into several rivulets for a short distance.
A bridge was quickly constructed at Kern Flat that made the Jordan-Dennison Trail more safe.
Ironically, it has been reported that Captain Jordan blazed a route up Golden Trout Creek as a late season alternate. Perhaps he would have been better off to select it as his main route, but then it headed a little too far north for his purposes.
The Jordan Trail and Dennison Trail were trails to the Coso Mines, not to Lone Pine or any points north, and so they were temporary mining trails. They crossed the Sierra Crest by way of Olancha Pass and Haiwee Pass, and from the base of these exits, required a significant trip to get to the fertile, settled country north of Owens Lake.
The Hockett Trail follows the lay of the range in a way that its sister trails do not, following ridges, plateaus, passes, seismic faults, saddles, canyon bottoms, and fords in ways that almost appear engineered.
The original trail dipped south of the end of the High Sierra where it skirted around the Great Western Divide. Early accounts indicate that the original route appears to have been preferred till the end of the 19th Century. This original trail intersected the Coso Trail at the south end of the Great Western Divide, opening the route to southerly alternatives for crossing the range. Two options availed themselves to the traveler for ascending out of Kern Canyon, one on either side of Golden Trout Creek. As one approached the crest, one could also opt to cross at Cottonwood Pass, often taken by early Whitney explorers, but slightly more difficult so far as crossing the range is concerned. For those continuing along the main route to the crest, there is a choice between Trail and Mulkey Passes.
Notwithstanding this abundance of choices, the primary route offered many outstanding benefits, such as an excellent ford on the Kern, a remarkably low ridgeline between the Kern and South Fork Kern watersheds, and relatively easy passage over the Sierra Crest.
The Hockett Trail, given that it was a High Sierra trail, provided unsurpassed access to mining and recreational destinations. The beautiful alpine valley of Mineral King was discovered by the Hockett Trail crew, and the first ascents of Mount Whitney employed the Hockett Trail.
As an added benefit, the Hockett Trail also provides unmatched access to every variety of golden trout, as it follows the Little Kern, the Big Kern, Golden Trout Creek, and the South Fork Kern as well. It might justifiably be called the Golden Trout Trail.
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Posted in Sierra Nevada, Background at 10:05 pm by Dan Jensen
The form of the Southern Sierra is like a tree, where the trunk of that tree is the Kern Canyon.
Kern Canyon may be one of nature’s least natural wonders. Conceived by an earthquake fault and molded by glaciers, it is as straight a terrestrial indicator of true north as can be found, and seems to be dug at right angles, without a single truss to hold up the great granite walls.
This stonewalled canal splits the Southern Sierra into two twin divides, each rising to elevations over 13,800 feet. The eastern divide is the loftier of the two (by 700 feet), but the western divide is the twin that endures most of the weather, and sports the most southerly glacier in the range.
The western divide even branches in two, giving birth to two lesser divides that each rise above 12,000 feet.
At this highest and most splintered segment of the Sierra Nevada, crossing the range can be a difficult task.
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Posted in Sierra Nevada, Background at 9:52 pm by Dan Jensen
Along the northeastern shore of the Great Ocean, a long, thin strip of land stretches 1500 miles, in about as straight a line as Nature will allow Herself to draw. The strip is born of the grinding of the great oceanic plate against the continental plate.
From Cabo San Lucas to Cape Mendocino, California is characterized by a system of strike-slip faults between the Pacific and North American plates, but California is more than a mere side-swipe; it is a collision, and this intercontinental collision involves—like so many others—one continent wedging under the other. In this head-on component of the collision vector is born the Sierra Nevada.
The uplift of the Sierra Nevada has not been gentle. It was associated with one of the most powerful earthquakes in California history, the Great Lone Pine Earthquake. It has also been associated with one of the most fantastic volcanic events known to science: the Long Valley supervolcano.
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