Overview

The Sierra High Route is a 195 hiking route through the high country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I hiked it in August and September of 2020. The route winds through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, multiple wildernesses and national forests. It spends about half of its length off-trail and the other half sharing miles with the JMT/PCT and other trails.

My plan was originally to hike southbound from Twin Lakes/Mono Village southward all the way to Cottonwood Lakes south of Mt. Whitney. On this route we would stay up in the high country while the original route headed southeast down to Road’s End in Kings Canyon. But 12 days in we hit major smoke and closures that forced us to bail out at Kearsarge Pass/Onion Valley trailhead. None the less, an epic trip.

Season

The SHR is hiked primarily during the summer after the snow has melted out of the high mountains, July-September.

Permits

The lands that the SHR runs through are managed by many different agencies and the coordination between them is complicated. Many of the other resources online can be misguiding. To hike the SHR, you only need a permit from the agency that manages the trailhead you’re entering from. But that agency has to coordinate with all the rest to check wilderness camping quotas throughout the length of your hike.

You will need to have a detailed plan that denotes:

• Your entry trailhead

• Camping location for each night for the duration of your hike

• Each resupply trailhead 

• If you plan to spend a night outside the wilderness(ie. in town) at each resupply. If so, that should be noted on your itinerary.

Note: If you do plan to spend a night it town, technically you can only spend one night outside of the wilderness or you will need a second permit.

From there, you’ll need to submit that itinerary to the agency managing your entry trailhead.

Common Trailheads and their managing agency(from north to south):

• Horse Creek Trailhead(Twin Lakes/Mono Village): Hoover Wilderness managed by Toiyabe National Forest. Info here.

• Tuolomne Meadows: Yosemite national park. Info here.

• Road’s End: Kings Canyon National Park. Info here.

• Kearsarge Pass(Onion Valley Trailhead): Kings Canyon National Park. Info here.

• Whitney Portal: Whitney Zone managed by Inyo National Forest. Info here.

• Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead: Managed by Inyo National Forest. Info here.

I don’t know how diligently the Forest and National Park Services hold hikers to the expected camping locations on a permit, but I think its best to get a permit that as closely tracks your trip expectations as possible. Anecdotally, we were checked by one back country ranger over our hike, and he only took our permit number, but did not look at our permitted camping locations.

Overview Map

Since the SHR is not a trail but a route, maps don’t offer a contiguous line, but instead offer waypoints and a hiker must choose how to precisely navigate from one to the next. This is a simple overview to help one get a general understanding of where the SHR runs. To protect the work of those who have put diligent effort into making maps, and to clean up the map, I’ve removed many waypoints. *Don’t use this map for navigating on trail*

Check out the resources below if you’d like more detailed maps.

Red - Route waypoints
Blue - Terminus
Purple - Towns

Weather

The Sierras are an extremely pleasant mountain range during the summer. There are few special considerations:

Bugs - Early season, June/July, you can expect bugs, after that, they are relatively tame.

Sun - Especially on the high route, you’ll spend lots of time completely exposed to the sun with little or no shade. Be prepared.

Precipitation - There is almost none during the summer. Still be prepared, but this is a true rarity.

 Resupplies 

There is basically one resupply point on the SHR, Red’s Meadows/Mammoth Lakes. Red’s Meadows is a pack resort on trail, 75 miles south of the Twin Lakes terminus, that accepts hiker packages. It has a small store and cafe as well.

They charge $40 to receive a resupply package or $3/day if you drop it off by hand. They require some paperwork to be done in advance so check out the details here.

Alternatively, you can go into town at Mammoth Lakes. You can get into town either at Red’s Meadow’s by hitchhiking the approximately 15 miles. Or you can exit the trail 5 miles south at Mammoth Pass. By taking the Mammoth Pass trail about 1/2 mile east, you arrive at the Horseshoe Lake trailhead. From there you can ride the FREE Lakes Basin Trolley into downtown.

For the 2020 season the trolley runs from 9am-6pm and arrives every 30 minutes, arriving at the Horseshoe Lakes stop every 26 and 56 minutes past the hour. Last pickup is at 5:26pm. See the full schedule here.

If you are extending your trip southward beyond the original terminus of the SHR, the other resupply location is over Bishops Pass, about 155 miles south of the Twin Lakes. The trail over Bishop Pass is about 7.5 miles long and descends 2200ft from the pass. There are three options here.

1. Resupply at Parcher’s Resort. Marcher’s is about 1.5 miles down the road from the South Lake trailhead. Parcher’s will hold your package for you for $25. Ship it well ahead of when you intend to arrive. Details here. There is no hot food, cell service or wifi at Parcher’s, its pretty remote and rugged.

2. From the trailhead you can hitch about 20 miles into Bishop. 

3. Rainbow Pack Outfitters is a ride and packing service that sits right next to Parcher’s, you can ship your food to them and then will have a packer and mule bring the food up to Bishop Pass at a pre-appointed day and time and wait for you there. You’ll need to give them a call to set this up. I’ve been told the price was about $100. Contact them here.

Pace

An off-trail hiking pace is much more variable than on trail. Chomping over unprepared rugged terrain is very different from a blazed trail. You don’t know how good the tread will be. If uneven talus, bushwhacking or rocky ground will slow you down.

You can have navigational errors that can cause hours of backtracking and rerouting, topo maps don’t tell everything and they leave a lot out.  Plan for about a half to two-thirds your trail pace. Your pace also won’t be even, you’ll often make your big miles on trail and slow down dramatically off trail. 

Timetable

I kept rough track of different legs of our trip. This may help potential hikers better understand the time they can expect different legs of their trip to take. These times sometimes include short or long breaks, so take them with a grain of salt. Additionally, every hiker will move at a different pace and with different consistency.

We started hiking at about 6:30am each day, and usually ended around 5:30-6:30pm and typically took about 1 hour for lunch.

Lastly, these times are oriented for a southbound hike. Timing can be dramatically different for a northbound hike. Ex: If we were heading downhill making good time, a NOBO will be headed uphill, likely moving at a very different speed.

The original google doc is here and available to copy if you’d like to use it.

Water

Water is easy to come by on the SHR. All of the lakes and almost all of their outlet streams run all year long. I carried two liters and rarely needed to carry more than one. I never needed more than two. My companion at 220lb, who is much bigger and sweats much more than me, had a 3L capacity, and never needed more than that.

We didn’t ever filter our water, and had no problem, but still have to recommend you filter yours. 

Resources

My time on the SHR

The OG - Steve Roper’s Sierra High Route: Traversing Timberline Country. The original guidebook. A mile by mile guide the the SHR.

Andrew Skurka’s SHR Mapset and Data pack: Contains mileage between major waypoints as well as maps in multiple different formats.

Swami’s SHR Guide: Lots of great info here.

Adventure Alan’s South Sierra High Route Guide: A 70-ish mile addition to the SHR extending it southward beyond Mt. Whitney.

Still have questions about the SHR? I’m happy to help.