Mount Cotter and Peak 12,602′

Mount Cotter 12,727′ and Peak 12,602′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 21:00
Distance: ~26.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 9,050′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Roads End, full services

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After a great outing on Mount Gardiner a few years prior, I began to look at other nearby SPS Peaks with renewed interest, thinking they might actually be reasonable days out of Roads End. Although Mount Cotter was only one summit over, at first glance it didn’t seem doable- the East Ridge of Gardiner separating Cotter from the Charlotte Creek Basin with an intervening drop to Sixty Lakes Col. But when I mapped it out in more detail and crunched the numbers, it began to feel a bit more reasonable- probably a 24ish mile day with maybe 1,000′ additional gain than on Gardiner. I would learn the hard way that this would be an underestimate, but decided to give it a go regardless, with an easy pivot to Mount Bago if going up and over the ridge proved to be too difficult. I left home shortly after 2 AM and started down the trail at 5 AM, not needing a headlamp only a few days from the summer solstice. I made short work of the first two flat miles, crossing the footbridge over the raging South Fork of the Kings River, and needing to take my shoes over for a second shorter crossing, swollen from spring run off.

Hiking up the switchbacks, I reached the junction with the Sphinx Creek Trail 4 miles in in about 1:20, not a record pace but not a bad start for the long day ahead. I had forgotten how much further it was to the Charlotte Creek turn off, taking another hour and 3 miles to see Charlotte Dome looming overhead. I had planned to ascend the Charlotte Creek drainage on its east side, but was pleasantly surprised to spot a large cairn in the forest on the west side, the climbers trail for Charlotte Dome that I had missed on both my ascent and descent of Mount Gardiner.

Although I lost the climbers trail intermittently in the forest duff, it was a big improvement from the climbers trail for Bubbs Creek Wall on the other side of the creek. As the trail disappeared in slabs and small granite cliffs above, I stumbled on a pair of climbers slowly working their way to the base of Charlotte Dome. I quickly passed them and reached the granite apron at the base of Charlotte Dome. I had remembered route finding being tricky here last time, and again had to walk across slabs and work around short steps to the east.

As the slabs began to end I was faced with a good amount of brush and manzanita, and I tried to stick to the slabs a bit longer, climbing higher towards Mount Gardiner in hopes the brush would be a little better higher up. This paid off, as I hit a patch of pine trees with less brush, leaving the slabs and stopping to fill up water at the unnamed stream originating from the small basin south of Mount Gardiner somewhere above. My topo showed an indistinct drainage that roughly parallelled Charlotte Creek on the slopes above to the north, and I aimed for this, hoping it would be flat and brush free. This again paid off, finding it not only to be brush free but also the location of the unmaintained Charlotte Creek Trail, which I had little hope of actually finding going into the day having not been maintained by the park service for decades.

I ran into a solo backpacker on the trail, surprised to see someone so deep let alone a day hiker- he would be the last person I would see all day. I followed the surprisingly good Charlotte Creek trail all the way to a small stream crossing running in the gully just west of Point 12,602′, roughly where I was hoping to cross the ridgeline to drop to Sixty Lakes Col. The stream was flowing fairly good and I decided I would top off waters a bit higher up. For a day that had been all good luck so far, this would be the first of many mistakes that would plague the rest of the day, as it would actually be my last water source from there all the way to the summit. But with a liter and a half in the my pack, I started up the steep slope oblivious to this fact.

The slope was sandy and loose, and I very quickly began to feel the effects of the altitude and being 11 miles and 6 hours into my day. It was nearly 2600′ from the Charlotte Creek Trail to the ridgeline above, and it took me 2 slow hours to cover that distance, needing to break far more than I would have liked.

I hit a notch in the ridge at 12,400′, getting my first look at Mount Cotter for the day. It didn’t exactly look close but not impossibly far either, probably about 1.5 miles away but with a big drop to Sixty Lakes Col to get there. There was a large snowfield keeping me from dropping down at the notch, so I climbed an extra 200′ to the summit of 12,602′, finding a cairn but no register.

After a short break, I began to map out my descent to Sixty Lakes Col. Being only June, dropping off the north side of 12,602′ with lingering snow was the big question of the entire itinerary and and the patches of snow made it a bit circuitous and tedious, working around cliff bands and some of the larger patches. The descent was a bit longer than it had initially appeared on the map, dropping over 1,000′ to the col with the painful realization I would need to not only make it back up to summit Mount Cotter, but also reclimb the tedious slope on the return.

I had renewed hope at Sixty Lakes Col which initially started off well. Following this to the south ridge of Mount Cotter, I skirted a number of bumps along the ridgeline to the west, before moving on to the south face directly once I was a bit closer. But I was starting to seriously bonk, having ascended now over 8,000′ on the day, the majority of that steep cross country, and with most of my water gone from the ascent to the ridgeline.

The last 1,000′ of ascent was painfully slow, climbing up to the class 3 summit blocks with a dramatic drop off the north face to the lower but more technical northern summit. It was after 4 PM when I summited, the latest I had summited a major SPS Peak in the day since the Thunderbolt to Sill traverse. The views were outstanding, looking across Sixty Lakes and Rae Lakes Basins to the east, the Great Western Divide to the south, Mount Clarence King to the north (on my schedule for August) and the Palisades in the distance to the northeast.

I had a knot in my stomach looking back to 12,602′ at the thought of climbing back up the snowy 1,000+’ with over 9,000′ already on the day. The lakes of the Gardiner Basin looked so inviting, and my gaze followed Gardiner Creek all the way downstream to the South Fork of the Kings River. Looking at my map, it looked like I could follow the Gardiner Creek drainage all the way to the Mist Falls Trail and it would be roughly the same distance as my ascent route, but save me 1,000′ of gain. I would also have an opportunity to refill my water, as I was now completely dry, and would likely need to drop to the lakes to refill anyways even if I choose to go back up an over 12,602′. I had no idea how brushy Gardiner Creek would be, but I reasoned that I’ve on sight descended plenty of Sierra drainages in the past, including navigating nearby Arrow Creek on my dayhike of Arrow Peak a few year prior. I knew I would need to cross the South Fork of the Kings River, but was picturing it to be a similar width as Bubbs Creek, and figured I could find a log crossing easily enough. How hard could it be? Turns out, incredibly difficult. I dropped off the summit of Mount Cotter to the south, finding a line of nice sand that I could boot ski down.

Rather than drop to Upper Gardiner Lake, I stuck to a granite rib of rock running across the basin, following this with easy cross country down to a series of slightly lower lakes where I was able to refill my water. There were a few cliff bands separating the lakes, hidden from view at the summit of Cotter, but easily bypassed on ramps to the north.

I made slower progress than I had initially expected, taking about two hours to work past all the lakes down to Gardiner Creek, now with a more or less straight shot to the South Fork of the Kings River to the west. I had roughly four miles to get there, and I was hopeful that I could do it before the sunset, particularly so close to the solstice. This initially seemed reasonable as there was not much brush in the upper drainage, following the river fairly closely and moving across talus field and granite slabs to work around small waterfalls and the occasional pockets of brush.

But as the sun set, I was less than half way to the South Fork of the Kings River and the brush had increased exponentially. I soon found myself thrashing through thickets well over my head, my pace dropping to less than 0.5 miles/ hour. To make matters worse, my phone died, so I had no way to track my progress and see how close I was to the river. With no good way to scout out a line around the brush in the darkness, I did the best I could to try and find pockets of talus and slab in the dark. I stuck along the south banks of Gardiner Creek for some time, but eventually crossed to the north side, it looking a little less brushy overall in the dark. This did wind up being marginally better, but it seemed there was no end in sight to this endless battle through the brush. To make things worse, I had developed some hot spots in the balls of both feet, my shoes constantly filling with small sticks and rocks faster than I could empty them in the thick brush. It was around 11 PM when I reached a point where the creek poured over a massive fifth class granite apron, and I assumed that although I probably finally close to the South Fork of the Kings River, I also needed to find away through this band of rock. I began trying ramps to the north, getting cliffed out on my first few tries but eventually finding away through after about 15 minutes. Even still, it was another 20-30 minutes of bushwacking before I finally hit the South Fork of the King River right at Mist Falls. The river was much wider than I had remembered, probably about 40-50′ across and absolutely raging. The roar of Mist Falls was deafening, and crossing the river here looked both terrifying and deadly, with no trees possibly long enough to provide a bridge across. I had a few options at this point. The first would be to work downstream on the wrong side of the South Fork, eventually reaching the footbridge across when I got all the way down to Kings Canyon proper, which I figured was about 2-3 miles of additional bushwacking along the river banks. Assuming a similar pace to Gardiner Creek, I probably wouldn’t get back to the car until sunrise. The other option would be to work downstream and find a place to ford the river. Either way I needed to work downstream, requiring me to cross Gardiner Creek once more, much more difficult near the outlet with it flowing far stronger than upstream. I eventually found a log to go across and began to follow the South Fork of the Kings River downstream, eventually hit a spot where it widened to about 60′ across, allowing the river to be a bit slower and shallower. It seemed as good of a spot as any to try and cross. I emptied my pockets, kept my shoes on and started into the water. It started off well enough initially, the east side of the river shallower with rock partially sticking out of the water to give me an idea of depth and the occasional hand when the current started to knock me off balance. But halfway across, the river became deeper and the current stronger, halfway up my thighs. It became difficult to take another step, and the blisters that had developed on my feet seemed to burst open from the fast moving water, screaming out in both pain and surprise from the sudden intense pain in both feet. Crossing the west half no longer seemed safe and I retreated back to the east shore, now with my shoes and pants completely soaked, my feet feeling like I was walking on daggers with each step and no closer to finishing. It was hard to pick a single low since leaving the summit of Mount Cotter, but that probably was the winner. Absolutely dejected, I slowly continued along downstream, now with little hope of getting to my car by sunrise. But it wasn’t long before I found another potential spot to cross, this one with a log extending from the shore to a patch of boulders about 1/3 of the way across the river. It was clearly shallow near the boulders with a collection of rocks jutting out of the water, leading to the presumably deeper west side of the river. But there was another log hanging into the river maybe 10′ from the rock sticking out of the water that it looked like I could climb on to if I could just reach it. Already soaked, it was worth a try. I walked across the log to the rocks in the water, this time bringing an extra stick along with my single trekking pole for some extra balance. This gave me just enough extra stability to move in the deeper water, now waist deep and ice cold. I dropped the stick when I reached the log hanging into the river on the far side wrapping one arm around it and following it to shore. The trail was only a few feet above the shore, and I whooped for joy when I hit it. I knew I realistically still had about 4 miles to get back to my car, but it was all trail and mostly downhill. So for the first time in probably 12 hours, I was able to pick up my pace on a Park Service maintained trail, ignoring my throbbing feet to move as quickly as I could back to the car. It was about 2 AM when I finally did get back to my car, being awake for a full 24 hours with 21 of those on the move. I took off my shoes and pants, my feet looking like pickled ginger with multiple closed and open blisters. I drove the 3 hours home barefoot, getting home at 4:45 and grabbing about 3 hours of sleep before heading to Cambria for a family weekend at the beach the next day 🙂