DATE 5/13/2014
IDS 4597 4603 4602 4314 4328 7281
GROUP land_1 sardine_point_1 sardine_1 pluto_1 watson_1 gold_star_1
Continued...
I had intended to spend the day climbing a few CA P1Ks located between Sierra Valley
and US395, including Mt. Ina Coolbrith, Haskell Peak, and another unnamed summit. My
efforts went for naught as I struggled to find a way to approach them. The summits
themselves are on USFS and BLM lands, but they are surrounded by several miles of
private ranches. The eastern approach looked best, but a gate along US395 is closed
until after June 30th. I drove around to the east side but found nothing helpful there
either. I decided on a plan B. Since I was already in Sierra Valley, I drove south on
Smithneck road, a long, but maintained dirt road that leads south to Stampede Reservoir.
Along the way it goes over the Sierra Crest separating the Feather and Truckee River
drainages. Just north of the crest is Pat's Meadow, a private inholding within the
Tahoe National Forest. A fork here heads east and up to Babbit Peak, a P2K I had visited
years earlier. To the west lay Sardine Peak, a P1K and the morning's goal.
Sardine Peak
In addition to the P1K, there are two other named summits in the area that seemed like
freebies since I was in the vicinity. I parked north of Pat's Meadow at the end of a
short Forest Service Road that ends at a locked gate leading into Pat's Meadow.
The topo map showed this as one of two roads leading up Trosi Canyon, but that's not
entirely accurate. The road I picked no longer continues through Pats Meadow, only
useful for
servicing a handful of homesteads here. I could have avoided the private property and
driven several miles up the main road if I'd known about the southern access road on the
south side of Pats Meadow. This could have made a much shorter outing of it.
It was 7:30a when I started out on the road through Pats Meadow. At the west
end, past the last home, I went over an old fence and along some unused
portions of the old road
that are now home to piles of slash and forest duff that appears to be the result of a
fire-prevention effort in the area. I found the better road a short distance past this,
following it up through aspen forests that thrive along the creek in Trosi
Canyon. About an hour in I turned right off the road and proceeded cross-country up the
south slopes leading to Land Peak (what kind of a name is that anyway? - sort
of like "Ocean Bay" or "Rocky Pinnacle"). 20min later I was atop the
rounded summit which had some views despite being mostly surrounded by forest.
One can see north into Sierra Valley and west to
Sierra Buttes, though the latter was just visible above an intervening ridgeline.
About a mile southwest and 500ft lower is Sardine Point,
a smallish, somewhat pointy summit. It took about 30min to travel from one summit to the
other, passing through a dry meadow at the saddle between them. An old
fenceline runs up and over Sardine Point. The views from the summit
were non-plus, not even a good view looking back to Land Peak. On the other
hand, it wasn't much out of my way and a few minutes travel downhill to the south got me
to the saddle with Sardine Peak and a junction of Forest Service
roads. I followed one of these towards the summit about a mile to the
southeast.
The area has seen heavy logging in the past, almost all of the trees second or third
generation. There are plenty of old roads criss-crossing the slopes that one can run
across while traveling cross-country, no longer shown on topo maps but still useable for
hiking. Not far below the summit I left the road to follow a more direct route up
Sardine's north slopes, coming across an old trail no longer maintained. I
found that it led to the summit, passing by an old toilet pit and then up to
the lookout, crossing the main road along the way.
The summit lookout tower has been recently painted and is in the process of
being refurbished. The insides
are filled with new appliances and a wood stove still in
shipping wrap, to be used to give it the rustic look of the 1950s or 1960s. There is a
picnic table and a new restroom on the south side where the tower has
fantastic views for 180 degrees, sweeping from Mt. Rose in the southeast to
Castle Peak and Mt. Lola to the west. In heading back down, I chose to forgo the more
circuitous side roads in favor of a direct route down to the main road in Trosi Canyon.
Despite some sections of heavy aspens which can often be near-impenetrable
thickets, these aspens were more humanely-spaced and a cinch to get through.
Back on the road, I followed it down to Pats Meadow and the car
where I arrived shortly before 11a.
Mt. Pluto/Mt. Watson
I spent the next hour and twenty minutes driving south to the pavement at Stampede
Reservoir (the dirt road section between Pats Meadow and Stampede is much longer and in
poorer condition than the section I had already traveled - if you have a choice for
approaching Sardine, coming from the north is much prefered) and eventually making my
way to the top of Brockway summit on the Tahoe rim. Mt. Pluto is a P1K and the highpoint
of Northstar Ski Area. I had skied there on a number of occasions and undoubtedly been
to the highpoint, but I couldn't recall anything about it. Hiking there seemed a more
appropriate experience for a peakbagger. The paved Mt. Watson Road leading west from
Brockway Summit can be used in the summertime to easily access both of these peaks, but
unfortunately it was closed at the moment. I had driven up here a few weeks
ago and found the same thing, but this time I had more time and was more determined to
make my way to Mt. Pluto whether the road was closed or not.
Mt. Watson Road traverses below the crest of the main ridge leading to Mt. Pluto through
an area of heavy forest with only infrequent, fleeting views of Lake Tahoe.
Most of it is a non-scenic plod along the paved road without the slightest
hint of snow or other reason
to justify it being closed (in fact there is some snow closer to Mt. Watson on various
side roads and the USFS probably has good reasons to leave it closed, but I was just
wishing that I didn't have to hike this portion). After about an hour and a quarter I was
on the SE flank of Mt. Pluto and could finally leave the road for the more interesting
climb up through the forest. It was not a wilderness climb at all - there are power poles
that one comes upon in clearings, old logging roads and backside
access roads used by the ski area personnel. In half an hour I reached the summit where
I found - a ski resort. Several chairs top out at the summit, there is a
spacious mountain lodge, facilities for maintenance and ski patrol, a huge
trail map, a tall communications tower and a great view
looking north to Martis Valley and the Truckee area. There was more than snow
than I had expected, but it was well consolidated and easy to walk on, and for the most
part confined to the summit and the north slopes. Once I started down the south slopes,
the snow disappeared almost immediately. About a fifth of a mile SSW of the summit is
something called the Sevison Monument. A plaque is dedicated to a
local youth only three years younger than myself that had died at the age of 14. The
monument is located on a small rocky outcrop that offers fine views looking
south and west, something Mt. Pluto was lacking due to tree cover.
From Sevison Monument, I left the road that descend from the summit,
dropping cross-country for 2/3 mile to the saddle with Mt. Watson, picking up another
road just before reaching the saddle. More cross-country led up from the saddle for half
a mile to Mt. Watson's summit ridge. Some snowl
was encountered on the way, a considerable
amount for the last several hundred feet, but again it was decently consolidated and not
much to be troubled by. More trouble was determining exactly where the highpoint of Mt.
Watson was. Trending east-west for 1/3 mile, the summit ridge is characterized
by a number of rocky points all vying to be the highest, but none obviously so
and trees making direct
line-of-sight comparison difficult. I used the GPS as I climbed all the possible
contenders along the ridge's entire length, eventually concluding the highest was
probably one of the first one's I had encountered near the west end of the ridge.
The available views were all to the south to the lake, Tahoe City vicinity,
and further to the higher summits at the south end of the lake from the Heavenly Ski
Area on the CA/NV border west to Desolation Wilderness. Nowhere did I manage to
find any sort of register.
I descended more or less straight down from the east end of the summit ridge, using
the snow to my advantage now (luckily the boots didn't get too wet),
reaching Watson Lake in about ten minutes. On the north side of the lake I
picked up the Tahoe Rim Trail which I could follow all the way back to
Brockway Summit, a longer, but more interesting alternative to the pavement. Some
portions of the trail were still covered in snow, but these soon disappeared
as the trail moved out of the shadier Watson Creek drainage to the south-facing
slopes above. As a final stop, I left the trail with about a mile remaining to pay a
visit to the unnamed Peak 7,740ft, about 3mi ENE of Mt. Pluto. It had little to offer in
the way of interest with a rounded, slash-strewn summit and weak
views. On the way back to the trail down the steep east side of this peak I
was jogging along and came across a strange find - what looked like powerline
insulators, heavy ceramic disks lying broken on the forest slope. Who would
carry these up here, I wondered, only to discard them? While staring down at them it
struck me - I looked up and sure enough there was
a powerline sneaking through the forest well overhead. The insulators had simply fallen
or been knocked off, probably in a wind storm. I soon got back to the trail and shortly
thereafter was back at Brockway summit before 5:30p, bringing the outing to
just under five hours.
After a shower I drove back to Nevada to spend the night at the large parking lot at Mt.
Rose Summit. Though signs didn't forbid overnight parking, I was surprised I wasn't
rousted in the middle of the night in this conspicuous spot by local law enforcement.
Sometimes it's nice to simply be ignored...
Continued...