Mount Senger 12,286′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 10:20
Distance: 20.1 miles
Elevation Gain: 6000′
Crux: Class 2
Trailhead: Florence Lake- full services seasonally
I was mercifully running out of peaks on the opposite side of Kaiser Pass, having ticked off a long link up of Red and White Mountain and Mount Isaak Walton the previous fall. One of the relatively shorter objectives left was a dayhike of Mount Senger. At a little over 12,000, the summits sits directly above Selden Pass on the JMT and would have been an easy chip shot during my thru-hike in 2020. However, Holly had a horrible Achille’s tendinitis flare that day going over the pass and I couldn’t justify leaving her at the time, leaving the summit untagged. Utilizing an old cut off trail before Muir Trail Ranch, it would be a little over 24 miles roundtrip, although I hoped to time it where I could catch the return ferry across Florence Lake, shaving off over 4 miles. I had missed the ferry back to VVR on my long dayhike out of Lake Edison the year prior, and to save myself the heartbreak, I started early, leaving home and reaching the trailhead before sunrise. The forecast had been calling for clear skies and a warm day the last I had checked, so I was quite surprised to find quite a bit of cloud cover as the sun rose.
I followed the trail along the southern shore of Florence Lake, reaching the inlet and bridge crossing of the San Joaquin River shortly after sunrise. I had not studied my map closely, and assumed I would be following the river towards Muir Trail Ranch. But in reality, the trail cut quite a ways away from the water, almost entirely in forest with the occasional meadow to cross. I was lost in thought and blew past the cairned turn off to the old cut off trail to Selden Pass, only realizing my mistake when I heard the babble of Sallie Keyes Creek ahead, indicating I had gone too far. I cut upslope and after a little manzanita bushwacking, quickly found the use trail, following it steeply uphill with the creek not far below.
The views across the Valley began to open up particularly to the south and Mount Henry, and I sat down for my first break of the day just in time for the clouds to produce a light rain. Expecting a high of 87 degrees, it was not unwelcome although it would make things quite humid climbing steeply uphill. The trail became a bit more difficult to follow as I left the manzanita scrub for pine forest, and I pull out my phone to follow a GPS track I had downloaded, although it reality you really just needed to hike directly upwards towards Sallie Keyes Lake. A few hundred feet below the lake outlet, I hit a lush meadow, the knee high plants wet from dew. I paused for a moment to catch my breath and was immediately swarmed by 100s of mosquitos. I threw on my rain jacket as quickly as possible and tried to move uphill through the meadow, not fast enough to escape the blood thirsty hoard. I wanted to filter some water and paused long enough to fill my bottle, and continued up above Sallie Keyes Lake into a boulder field where the mosquitos relented long enough to actually filter the water I had collected.
With the humidity and sprint away from the mosquitos I was dripping sweat, and sucked down half the liter I had gathered before starting back up. From the bench above Sallie Keyes Lake, I had a little under 2,000′ to the summit, the slopes actually less steep than they had looked from below.
Although I had been moving well all morning, my faster pace through the meadows had burned through my energy reserves and left me a little dehydrated, and the final push to the summit took over an hour and a half, much slower than my usual pace. Despite sitting right over Seldon Pass, the summit was not quite as popular as I expected, and I spent a good time resting at the summit enjoying the views of Recess Peak, Mount Hilgard, Mount Gabb and Seven Gables to the north, a storm coming down over Mount Humphreys to the east, and patchy rain over Mount Goddard and the Evolutions to the southeast. I eyed the ridgeline across to Gemini and considered what it would take to climb it from the west, a very long day but definitely doable.
The rain over Humphreys seemed to be inching closer so I dropped off the summit, finding a small creek to filter another liter of water that I had somehow missed on the ascent. I dropped down through the forest, missing Sallie Keyes Lake and hitting Boot Lake instead just as the rain moved directly overhead.
What started as a sprinkle quickly turned torrential with lightning strikes on the ridgeline on the other side of the San Joaquin and I was happy to be back in treeline. The small upside of the rain was keeping the mosquitos at bay, and I made it through the sopping wet meadows and back to the use trail west of Sallie Keyes Creek. The rain had cleared by the time I made it back to the main trail, with an hour and a half to cover the 3ish miles to the ferry pick up, plenty of time to hike at a leisurely pace. I took one last break before starting west down the trail, getting to the landing at about 3:30 with two other backpackers already waiting.
The ferry came about 15 minutes early and wound up leaving before the scheduled departure time of 4 PM, zipping across the lake in about 10 minutes and saving me over 4 miles of hiking. I grabbed some snacks and paid for my ferry at the small store then hopped back in my car and headed back over Kaiser Pass, ticking off one more trip over the rough and windy road.
