We reached Red lake in the early afternoon and made camp at 10,500' on a hill just above the lake. We spent the afternoon taking in the scenery and recovering from the slog up the hill. The weather was perfect at camp with mild temps and light winds. The view of Split Mountain and frozen Red Lake was awesome. The peak towers 3500' above the lake.
We got up at 3am on Sunday and were headed for the peak by 4. The climb up to the north slope was amazing. The views got better and better as we gained the ridge.
We reached the peak at 9am and spent 30 minutes or so enjoying the views. There is still a lot of snow in the sierra!
It took us 5 hours to reach the peak and only 1.5 to get back down. We were able to glissade on about 1000' of the decent.
We packed up camp and began the slog back to the cars. On the way down we stayed on the south side of Red Mountain creek as long as we could to take advantage of the snow, then cut back over to the south side and rejoined the trail. Got back to the cars around 4 and were home by 9:30.
If you want to do this peak, stop by the permit office in Lone Pine and pick up their driving directions. The directions and way points to the trailhead on climber.org and summitpost are accurate however they are more complicated than they need to be. The forest service handout for the road is much easier to follow and gives accurate mileages between turns. Most stuff I read about the drive to the trailhead says 4 wheel drive is needed beyond McMurry Meadows but I would disagree. The road to McMurry meadows is in excellent condition and we were able to travel at a good speed (look out for cows!). Beyond the meadows the road narrows and becomes more rocky, but I never needed to turn on my four wheel drive and didn't see anything that looked like it would be a problem for most trucks or SUVS with decent clearance. On the way out we took the semi-legal route, skirting the private property on a very rocky road that takes you to Tinemaha campground then back to 395. This route is much shorter but very very rocky and you need more clearance than the McMurry meadows route.
The rest of my pictures are here
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