At the end of May I spent a couple days hiking on the PCT from Kennedy Meadows, this time visiting Deer Mountain. Attentive readers might remember that last year I was in the same area and summited Deer Island viewtopic.php?t=9429. Looking at the map once again I noticed another nearby peak called Deer Mountain, I guess I wasn't zoomed in at the correct level to see it before. Anyway, it looked pretty simple on the topo so I figured even I could do it. My plan was to camp at a spot I had been to once before which also looked like a reasonable area to start from. The usual traffic-clogged drive up there was mostly uneventful, although it took so long I pulled over at the Dove Springs OHV area to sleep. On the way further north I took a detour to see Walker Pass, which was unremarkable on the road but apparently a big deal when it was "discovered" in the 1800s. I was happy to find a parking spot near the trailhead at KM, the guys next to me were very talkative so it still took me a while to get on the trail. The late morning start meant that it would be rather warm on the exposed part of the trail so I took a nice long break at Crag Creek to have some pop tarts and just listen to the water running.
The somewhat recent rains meant the nearby meadows were green which was nice to see after a couple years of brown grasses.
A little cloud cover helped on the long uphill section although the little thermometer on my backpack showed 90 degrees. Knowing I would need a bunch of water for the next day, I took another break to fill up at a spot near the trail. Carrying an extra two liters didn't make my back or legs feel any better but it wasn't too much further to my camp spot just past that saddle ahead.
I got there early enough to sit around for a few hours, taking my time to set up camp and reading a book about polar explorations. Northbound PCT hikers started filtering through later, most heading another 3 miles north to the popular camp spot at the Kern River bridge crossing. A couple groups mentioned seeing a bear about a half mile back on the trail, so I ate dinner and moved my food much further away than usual.
I was fortunate to have this tiny stream nearby so I had plenty of water and celebrated with a Nuun lemonade drink and hot cider later.
My campsite was at 8000 feet, when I had looked at the topo I figured Deer Mountain was just a few hundred feet up based on the contour lines. Once again I didn't zoom in enough, turned out I only saw the the 200-ft lines so the total climb would be 1400 feet in the morning. Another thing I didn't plan for was how to carry water that far, so I rigged up some tent cord and tied it around a bottle, wearing it around my neck. Not optimum but it worked out...
Walking up to the summit, I had planned to move towards the northern ridge which was a little less steep, but the brush and rocks and gulleys kept pushing me to the right (south). I also skirted that way to avoid giving up elevation a couple times, so once I got to a plateau below the mountain I was close to a mile away from my planned route.
Starting up the slope toward Deer Mountain.
Obstacles- I didn't want to descend that gully so I went up the rocks to my right where of course I ran into more of the same.
View of the mountain from my last plateau. Again, I wasn't able to easily get to the north ridge (on the left side).
No problem, just keep going up is the rule here. While I still wanted to get to what looked like a ridge, I ended up going through some kind of juniper type trees and plenty of rock.
It's not technical, it still took a bit of route finding to pick a way through all this stuff, sometimes merely looking for the sunlit spots and walking that direction.
Finally nearing the top it got to be all rock which was a fun little scramble. I was headed to the right side of some trees up there but didn't like the look of the rock slope and chose to head left (north) a bit. This was providential, as I reached the summit exactly where the coffee can holding the register sits.
Summit view looking mostly north, Deer Island is shadowed in the middle of the picture. Olancha Peak is on the right.
Interesting to see the notes, the oldest is from May 1971. This place only sees a few visitors a year, the last three years only have one summit each with the previous being September 2025.
For the walk down I basically reversed my planned route, which was very sandy and while easier would have been a slog going up.
I aimed for this single pine tree, which I passed on the way up. Again I took a different route down as I still got pushed a different direction because of avoiding rocks and brush.
I ended up about a half mile north of my campsite, reaching the trail near the lower meadow (I believe it's Monache).
From there I took a Snickers break, topped off with water and headed back down. A few miles later while walking around a bend I heard voices and a very pissed off rattlesnake, which people were trying to get into photos. We all detoured around that particular bush and kept moving, although one woman walked back a couple times to get a better shot. When I got to the lower bridge I spent some time daydreaming and when I looked forward there was a large rattler two steps away from me. I watched and filmed it for a few minutes, never getting close enough to prompt a shake of the tail. Finally moving on, I was able to camp closer to KM which made for a pretty easy morning before my drive home.
This is always a great place to visit in late spring when the water is still flowing and the grasses are green. All in I figure about 20 miles and 2200 feet of elevation gain with most of that on Deer Mountain.
Deer Mountain
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JeffH
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"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours".
Donald Shimoda
Donald Shimoda
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dima
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Thanks for writing that up! So you looked at the map from the earlier trip, saw "Deer Mountain", and this trip was specifically to go bag it? Did you already do all the greatest hits? 