Independence Peak
1 Jul 2000 - by Scott Kreider
On Saturday July 1st Arun Mahajan, Stephan Meier, and I set
out for Independence Peak from the Onion Valley parking lot.
After about 30 minutes of hiking on the trail to Robinson
Lake we hit a flatter section of trail and could see a
relatively open section where we had a clear shot at the
south ridge of Independence. The going was slow lower on
the mountain as the scree was disagreeably loose and
required extra energy to pedal up the pea sized gravel. We
headed for a prominent horizontal teetering block on the
ridge to the far right (south) of the summit following a
gully. Once on the ridge we proceeded towards the summit
reaching a flat area at the top of another, more inviting
chute. We continued on the very top of the ridge only
dropping to the right hand side only just prior to the final
summit. Heading down we opted for the inviting looking
chute and this made for a speedy slide back to the cars.
Stephan with his ski poles polished his scree skiing skills
as Arun joyfully shot down hill at full gallop. Round trip
was about 6 hours making this a very reasonable length
dayhike. (Note: Although warnings about bears abounded
there were no bear boxes available for food storage other
than those reserved for car campers.)
To file a trip report, please fill in the Report Entry form or contact the webmaster.
