YOSEMITE ALTERNATIVE NEEDED

It's just north of Yosemite, and much of the terrain has some of that same wonderful granite. you can easily find a five day trip there–we've got a few of them on our website under the destinations section: backpackthesierra.com.

But beware! Late October will almost certainly mean snow on the ground, and it's really only a question as to whether you are going to see 3 inches or two feet. Anything over about three inches will obliterate the trail—so if you are not comfortable navigating without a trail, stay out of the mountains.

And it will be cold. We had temps down into the low 30's two weeks ago. It could easily drop below zero F in October at elevation.

The alternative might be something like Henry Coe State Park south of San Jose. It's quite large, and while you won't be hiking in the Sierra or getting over 5,000 feet, you can certainly spend a few days exploring the coast range…and living to tell the tale.

Phil,

Thanks for the reply information and insight. Greatly appreciated.

Mark

You might want to check out the Lost Coast north of Fort Bragg, south of Eureka. The southern half is the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park. Really beautiful, remote, rugged up and down ridges the whole time. The northern portion is beach hiking where you need to check the tide book to make sure you can get across portions of the trail.

You won't be dealing with snow but it can rain hard on the north coast. It's probably 4-5 hours drive to one of the trailheads from SF.

+1 on the Lost Coast. Not the Sierra, but a very cool experience. Need to time tides in a few sections on the northern section. Nights getting a bit cooler, but at this point the long range forecast looks dry for the next 10 days.

Most of the national forests shouldn't really be closed, by that I mean they aren't blocking off parking areas and roads or ticketing people.
The trinity alps are similar to the sierras, high alpine with lots of granite. Jerry Adams said he went there recently and didn't have any issues with closures.

Paul, Joseph, Travis, Justin,

Thank you for the information. This gives me some options. Greatly appreciated.

Mark

Let us know what you ended up doing.

Looks like the Park is open for business. Thanks everyone for the support and suggestions.

Mark