Solo: Sawtooth Traverse and Matterhorn Peak

PART II – MATTERHORN PEAK

It never got cold that night, and I slept most of the night with my quilt down at my knees. I woke up very early the next morning, knowing that I needed to climb Matterhorn Peak quickly to avoid the chance of getting caught in an afternoon thunderstorm. I broke camp in about 15 minutes and hiked a ways up the trail before stopping for coffee & granola. The sun just began to illuminate the highest peaks of the Sawtooth Range as I ate breakfast.

Burro Pass became visible as just a small notch in the west ridge of Matterhorn Peak. My route for the day was to climb to Burro Pass, and then continue up the west ridge and southwest slopes to the summit. From this angle, the West Ridge looked impossibly steep. But one axiom that is almost invariably true in the Sierra is that nothing is as steep or as hard as it looks from far away.

I made the 800' climb up to Burro Pass in about an hour, and surveyed the route in front of me. It looked like I could climb the first 500 or so feet on the West Ridge, before being forced off to the sandy southwest slope. The SW slope then lead to a prominent notch in the ridgeline which would give me access to the summit.

The W. Ridge turned out to be a fun rock scramble with a few sections of class 2. This was followed by a miserable hour's or so work climbing the remaining 900' of scree to the notch. The notch had an impressive view south encompassing most of Yosemite, and an equally impressive view north to Twin Lakes and Horse Creek Canyon.

I dropped my pack, hoping a marmot wouldn't chew off the straps, and headed up the remaining 200 feet or so of class 2 or 3-ish blocks to the summit. I made it to the top at about 9:15 AM.

The view from the top was sublime, and I spent an enjoyable 20 minutes or so taking in the views. There wasn't a cloud in the sky- it was starting to seem like this trip was a good idea after all.

PART III – HORSE CREEK CANYON

Here I found myself at 12,200', with my car 5,100 feet and 5 or so miles below me. Part of my motivation for this trip was that I am planning on hiking the Sierra High Route, if not this season, at least some time in my life. Horse Creek Pass and Horse Creek Canyon form the last few miles of the High Route, and I wanted to get a taste for how difficult the SHR actually is. I've done a fair amount of rock climbing and scrambling in the Sierra, and wanted to know how the routes I have done stack up against a "real" section of the High Route.

I could see Horse Creek Pass from the summit, with a steep snowfield sticking out behind a rocky notch. I was able to scree ski 1,200' down the Southeast Slope of Matterhorn Peak in less than 15 minutes, and before I knew it I was staring down the pass. By staying far to the left, I was able to avoid the snowfield by climbing down relatively stable talus followed by a short 100' section of dangerously loose talus. It was only after I made it down this section that I realized there was no difficulty at all descending directly next to the snowfield, where a chute of what looked like stable talus bypassed the snowfield entirely. Oops.

The slope gradually lessened, and after about an hour and 1,000' of elevation loss I was mostly out of the boulders. I was able to follow intermittent use trails by this point, and Horse Creek had grown from a small flow out of the snowfield into a bona fide creek.

The water was quite cloudy with silt, which I haven't seen very often in the Sierra. I suppose this is a result of the permanent snowfields above.

As I continued to descend, I began to gain more and more respect for the group of guys I had seen plodding up the SE Slope on their way to summit Matterhorn Peak. Horse Creek Canyon is steep! The trail I was descending was way steeper than anything I had come up in Little Slide Canyon. In fact, dropping more than 5,000 feet in a little more than 4 miles makes this route approximately twice as steep as hiking to the top of Half Dome via the Mist Trail.

As one final indignity, the use trail was pinched off by a talus slope that reached all the way down to Horse Creek.

After a few more minutes of scrambling over this obstacle, the use trail could finally be called a real trail and about an hour later I was descending switchbacks back to my car at Twin Lakes. A final view of Matterhorn Peak over Horse Creek Falls was a nice way to close out the trip.

Here's a map of my route:

Thanks for reading!

Andrew

"This trip almost didn't happen."

I, for one, am glad you did, both for your sake and ours. You put together an excellent route with a very good trip report and great pictures to boot. Way to go, Andrew! I really enjoyed going along for the ride.

Excellent trip report Andrew, thanks.

That's a beautiful area, we were there a few years ago – I would love to go back……

Andrew, that was a GREAT trip report. I have only been to Hoover once….I need to fix that. Great pics!

Thumbs up!

Chris – You look familiar in your photo but I can't quite place it. Does your car talk?

Andrew… Awesome! I've been eyeing Matterhorn ever since moving out here. Very nicely done. I may be following nearly your exact footsteps at some point later this season.

Did it look feasible to follow the ridge past Horse pass SE and bag Twin Peaks as well?

Thanks for all the feedback, guys.

James, I don't know if you have a copy of Secor's "The High Sierra" but would highly recommend his map and info on Ice Lake Pass and the Matterhorn if you have access to a copy (or borrow mine sometime!) It has good info on the easiest route to take in Little Slide Canyon and Horse Creek. As well as just being an awesome book in general.

As far as Twin Peaks, you could get to the top of "Horse Creek Peak" which is a sub-peak of Twin Peaks just east of the pass… Secor says the SW side is class 2. But taking the ridge to Twin Peaks proper would most certainly be class 5.

Andrew

NIce report and photos Andrew. My wife and I came through Horse Creek Pass just a week earlier putting a wrap on the SHR. The pics from the peak and the views it afforded look amazing. I wish we had taken the time to get up there but we were spent by that point.

Agreed. I had Matterhorn on the list of peaks to bag on my SHR hike, but by the time we got there, we just wanted to put the early morning crampons on and head down the steep hard snow below the pass towards the finish line (and beer).

Andrew,

nice trip report – I always enjoy reading them and seeing your photos – for example when you got snowed on at Hetch Hetchy.

As your PM is not working, I'm reaching out to you this way. Send me a PM if you are interested.

This is the second time I read that you are preparing for the SHR. Last time you wrote that you are planning for a two week solo end of this summer.

I too am planning a solo trip on the SHR this summer for two weeks from 9/1 to 9/16 – going all the way from Road's End to Mono Village. I actually plan right now to do it in 12 days, but like to have buffer days and I'm planning on spending an extra day on summiting Mt. Ritter from the West (mostly class 2 and no glacier).

My wife who will hike the JMT next week with me and two of our daughters, likes that I take a SPOT along, but would like it better if I had a partner. Although I'm planning all along for a solo trip I have a permit for four.

Since we both live in the Bay Area it would be easy to meet and exchange plans.

Have a great weekend,

Manfred