High Trail is one of the Sierra’s most scenic trails, with unforgettable views of the Ritter Range and Sierra Crest (Trip 40).
GOING HIGH TO GET HIGH
By Thomas Winnett, Wilderness Press Founder
As I write this, it is nearly 40 years since we at Wilderness Press held a celebration to promote the first edition of Sierra North and the upcoming Sierra South, one-of-a-kind books Karl Schwenke and I wrote to recommend 100 of the best backpacking trips into the northern Sierra and 100 into the southern Sierra.
It was the summer of 1967, and we celebrated in the backcountry with a high-altitude cocktail party. We invited everyone we thought would help get the word out about the book—people from the Sierra Club, outdoor writers, and friends. We held it in August, in Dusy Basin, in the eastern Sierra, 8 miles from the nearest car. The hike went over a 12,000-foot pass, so we were delighted when 15 people showed up. It was a real party. We used snow to make our martinis, ate hors d’oeuvres, and spent the night. In a mention of the event, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wondered, “How high can you get to get high?”
It was a spectacular occasion not only because we were launching the books, but because we were starting a new company. We founded Wilderness Press in 1965. Karl, a backpacking friend of mine, and I had been complaining about how hard it was to get accurate information about the out of doors. At the time, there were only one or two guidebooks to the Sierra—our favorite place—so we decided to write our own. We planned to create pre-packaged trips that specified which trails to take and where to stop each night. We would do a series of small books, each covering a 15-minute quadrangle, and they would be called the Knapsacker/Packer Guide Series.
In the summer of 1966, we started doing the field research. Our approach was simple: We wanted to accurately describe where the trails led and what was there. On my scouting trips, I carried more than your average backpacker. In addition to all the standard gear, I packed two cameras, two natural history books to help me indentify flowers and birds, and my Telmar tape recorder. The tape recorder ran about half the speed of the recording devices that are available today, and I’d walk along, dictating into the microphone everything I thought our customers would be interested in reading. So in addition to the basics—how to get to where you start walking, where to go, and the best campsites—we also described what we saw, the animals, flowers, birds, and trees.
By the end of the summer, we had enough material to cover most of the trails in the northern Sierra, so we published a book of 100 trails and called it Sierra North. Next, we set about work on Sierra South, which we published in 1968.
The first edition of Sierra South sold like the proverbial hotcakes; we sold out our entire print run of 3000 books. Since then, this book has sold more than 140,000 copies, and it gives me great joy to see it in its eighth edition. As I think back to that high-altitude cocktail party in 1967, I wonder how many people have used this book to “go high to get high” in the Sierra. I have personally walked more than 2000 miles in this most beautiful of mountain ranges, and although I can’t do that anymore, I am still hooked on the experience—the splendid isolation, the scenery that really lights up your eyeballs, the strength you feel climbing with the weight of your pack on your back, the myriad trout. I hope this guidebook hooks you, too.
Backpacker on the McGee Creek Trail (Trips 49–52)
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to what we think is just about the most spectacular mountain range in the contiguous 48 states. The Sierra Nevada is a hiker’s paradise filled with its hundreds of miles of wilderness uninterrupted by roads, hundreds of miles of trails, thousands of lakes, countless rugged peaks and canyons, vast forests, giant sequoias, and terrain ranging from deep, forested river valleys to sublime, treeless alpine country.
Updates for the Eighth Edition
Welcome, too, to the eighth edition of Wilderness Press’s Sierra South. For this edition, we have some new co-authors, and we’ve taken a radically different approach to organizing the trips. This book is divided first into the Sierra’s west and east sides and second, within the west and east sides, into road sections so you can easily locate your favorite part of the southern Sierra. Each road section includes trailheads that serve as starting points for the many individual trips in the book. Additionally, each trailhead includes a map showing every trip launching from that point, and each trip includes an elevation profile. We’ve also incorporated Global Positioning System (GPS) data as UTM coordinates into our trips for GPS users. We think these changes reflect the way in which you’ll actually use this book better than previous editions have.
Sierra South now spans the Sierra from the southern boundary of Yosemite National Park and from Yosemite’s eastern boundary south of Hwy. 120 (the Tioga Road) to the Sherman Pass area, covering a greater north-south region than previous editions. This region includes the true High Sierra, with its abundance of dramatic, above-treeline granite peaks and basins. As of its ninth edition, this book’s sister, Sierra North, covers the Sierra from Yosemite north through the Tahoe area to I-80 and the proposed Castle Peak Wilderness just north of I-80.
Unlike the region covered by Sierra North, in the territory this book covers, no roads cross the range between Hwy. 120 on the north and the network of roads that cross Sherman Pass, a distance of some 140 air miles to the south. However, along those 140 air miles, many roads penetrate the range from its west and east sides, and these are the roads you’ll use to get to trailheads in this book. The book’s first major trip section covers the region’s west side and presents roads into the west side from north to south. The second major trip section covers the Sierra’s east side and, also from north to south, the roads into the range from the east.
If you have used previous editions of Sierra South, you’ll find many of your old favorite trips here, as well as some wonderful new ones. Our coverage now includes Dinkey Lakes, Kaiser, and Jennie Lakes wildernesses, in addition to Ansel Adams, John Muir, and Golden Trout wildernesses. Most longer trips can be abbreviated to create fine, shorter ones, and many can be linked to other trips to create multiweek adventures. As before, this edition includes the must-see High Sierra Trail (now Trip 31).
It’s our hope that this new edition will help you enjoy our superb southern Sierra as well as give you an incentive to work to preserve it.
We appreciate hearing from our readers. One of our goals is to keep improving these books for you. Please let us know what did and didn’t work for you in this new edition and about changes you find. We’re at 1200 5th St., Berkeley, CA 94710; [email protected]; 800-443-7227; 510-558-1666; fax 510-558-1696. Please visit us online at www.wildernesspress.com.
Care and Enjoyment of the Mountains
Be a Good Guest
The Sierra is home—the only home—to a spectacular array of plants and animals. We humans are merely guests—uninvited ones at that. Be a careful, considerate guest in this grandest of Nature’s homes.
About a million people camp in the Sierra wilderness each year. The vast majority of us cares about
