Sonora Pass Peakbagging

Peaks: Stanislaus Peak, Disaster Peak, Tower Peak

July 2025

At this point in the summer my back pain had turned into undiagnosed full body agony. Several doctors had pilfered my wallet but offered nothing in the way of diagnosis, let alone cure, for my ailment. I unironically thought I was dying and bedrest was no longer helping, so I decided to opt for some time out in nature. It was probably ill-advised considering I could hardly walk around the house, but I hobbled into the car and drove out to Sonora Pass to meet Anthony and Noe for a weekend trip, bagging some mellow peaks with easy bails in case my condition worsened.

If my memory serves me, we met up at the Saint Mary trailhead around 8 p.m. I hadn’t seen Noe in maybe two years, so we had some catching up to do while we cooked and subsequently ate dinner. It was great to have a little reunion of the three of us — the same motley crew that somehow managed to hike the Rae Lakes Loop on a school weekend all those years back in our youthful naivety.

We slept soundly and got an early start up to Stanislaus Peak. The weather looked like it would be dodgy all weekend, so we opted for an early start. The sunrise was magnificent and the miles floated by. We reached the summit, trotted back to the trailhead, ate some snacks, and piled in Noe’s car to hit Disaster Peak.

The route up Disaster Peak was short but felt slow on account of the somewhat tedious off-trail miles. Views from the summit certainly made the climb worth it, and eventually we were back at the trailhead.

Two peaks in one day and my back hadn’t become totally unbearable yet. We drove back to the Saint Mary trailhead and discussed our options. We decided to get a few miles of the approach to Tower Peak under our belt that afternoon. It certainly was an efficient day! We crushed several miles of trail towards Tower Peak and camped along West Walker River. The bugs were somewhat onerous at camp but fortunately I brought my tent. I think Anthony and Noe wisely did the same.

As the night wore on my back started getting more painful than it had been all day. I tried to move around to get more comfortable, but no position offered any respite. It was the same pain I had been dealing with every night for the last two months but amplified due to our hard day of exertion and the hard dirt ground I slept on. I slept for maybe two hours and was happy when the sun finally arrived. Getting up, moving a bit around camp, and starting our hike for the day offered a small bit of relief.

Unfortunately for me, Tower Peak involves a ton of hiking and a ton of class two and three terrain. Despite the odds, I pushed on. Every step was a challenge, but then again, so was every moment at rest, so I figured it would be better to suffer and do something cool than suffer and vegetate. The final class three push to the summit was a bit challenging due to the pain and my very limited range of motion, but I suffered through to the top. Noe and Anthony graciously slowed down with me and checked in on how I was doing every few minutes.

The summit was stunning. Tower Peak sits right on the northern boundary of Yosemite National Park, and it was neat to look down upon a rugged and seldom-visited part of the park. We identified some peaks in the distance, ate some snacks, and eventually began reversing our progress. If my memory serves me, we hiked out that same day. Once at the cars, Noe headed back east to Mammoth, and Anthony and I headed west towards the pass once again with our sights tentatively set on Black Hawk Mountain. We picked up some late PCT hikers at Sonora Pass and took them to Kennedy Meadows North. They were quite the eclectic pair. Anthony drove one of them in his van and I took the other in mine. Nice folks though.

Kennedy Meadows was a bit of a spectacle so we didn’t linger for long. We backtracked a few miles on the road and camped at a pullout for the night. I felt pretty destroyed and so I opted to just head home the next morning. Anthony cracked on for Black Hawk before dawn. It was a good weekend of hiking instead of vegetating.