Another Southern Sierra Loop

Peaks: Crag Peak, Smith Mountain

May 2024

We started this trip out of the Kennedy Meadows campground. Because it was early season, the campground was free and we shared it with almost no one. The Southern Sierra, we found out, is quite the gem for shoulder seasons. Early in the morning, we packed out bags with some food. Our plan was to climb Crag Peak, come back to the car, drive to the base of Smith Mountain and then climb it as well. Anthony mentioned he was packing 4000 calories and said it was “just in case we want to traverse to Smith from Crag.”

I thought he was joking, so I packed 1500 calories which would be plenty to get my to Crag and back to the car for a resupply before Smith. It turns out, Anthony was not joking. Once we climbed Crag, which involved a few miles on the PCT, a bit of cross country travel, and a very fun class 3 scramble, he said that he was planning to drop off the west face of Crag and traverse to Smith.

Not wanting to leave my buddy, and partly thinking that our incident on Spanish Needle the day before had induced some mild schizophrenia in him, I said I would join him. He kindly offered to buff out my paltry rations, and soon we were descending off the summit, making up the route as we went. Unfortunately, the descent involved about an hour of unbearably scratchy brush and shrubs that destroyed my bare legs. Pants would be a good idea for the intrepid hiker who wants to repeat our route.

We crossed Lost Creek, and tried looking for a trail that was marked on our maps. We never found it, and ended up walking many soggy miles along various creeks as we made our way west. Once we spotted Smith’s summit, we decided to shoot directly up it. Some snow on its east face slowed our progress, but before long we were on its broad summit. The views were stellar, affording us a peek into the depths of the still very snowy portions of the range to our north.

We descended southeast off the peak, and met up with a moto trail. That dropped us onto a fireroad which led us to Sherman Pass Road. The pass was still closed and so we expected to do the nine mile road walk back to the car. A Cruise America RV passed us heading west, and I joked that it would come back and pick us up. Well, that’s exactly what happened. A nice, though very disheveled and disorganized British couple picked us up. They dropped us off at the general store, where Anthony treated us both to big burgers. We chatted with Susie, the owner, for some time, and eventually walked the couple miles back to our car and campsite. The next morning, I dropped Anthony off along the 395, where he’d hitch up north for some more backpacking, and I drove back to Santa Cruz, rejoining society until the next trip.