Got stuck on a washed out section of the High Sierra Trail last summer

Just past Bearpaw Meadow, a whole chunk of the trail was gone from a rock slide. I thought we could scramble around it in maybe 20 minutes. It ended up taking us over three hours to find a safe way across with our full packs. We had to backtrack almost a mile to a creek bed and work our way up. Has anyone else hit a major trail failure that ate up a whole afternoon?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_tara3mo ago

A flash flood once turned our planned day hike into a two night survival situation.

skyler_mitchell3mo ago

Flash floods are scary but they don't usually last two nights.

stone.jesse20d ago

That thing about turning a day hike into a two night survival situation... yeah, I've been there but in the stupidest way possible. We took a "shortcut" on a well marked trail that added maybe 3 miles, but we ended up cliffed out and had to camp on a sketchy slope without a tent. I carried that tent 15 miles for nothing... just to sleep under a tarp I brought as an afterthought. Your flash flood story makes my navigation failure look like a picnic, but man, those hours of backtracking really beat the confidence right out of you.

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