Foerester Peak 12,064′ and Long Mountain 11,499′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 12:30
Distance: 27.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 7250′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Isberg Trailhead, no services
Technical alpine climbing had taken me away from bagging too many Sierra Peak Section summits for the season, with only 5 ticked off by Labor Day. I had a random day off in mid September, and looking to pad my stats, set my sights on Foerester Peak in Southern Yosemite, one of the closest SPS summits I had yet to climb from home. With the approach partially in the burn area from the Creek Fire, I had been putting off climbing it while the area recovered and they repaired some of the road damage, which was still not complete. Although I would have preferred to head south to Mineral King, the Coffeepot fire had closed off the area and made the air quality poor in Kings Canyon, leaving this as one of the few remaining viable options for a single day SPS strike. My daughter woke me before my alarm and after trying to briefly fall back asleep, I left home shortly after 1 AM. They had very recently paved the road from Beasore Meadows to beyond the Balls, and I made excellent time to the trailhead to Jackass Lakes. However, shortly after the road turned to dirt, I hit a road closure where Norris Bridge was still out, leading me on a detour down a rather rough road. I tried to take a road past Strawberry Mine to a cut off trail to Cora Lakes that would save me about a mile each way, but found it impassable just beyond the mine. Between the detour and attempted short cut, the drive took about an hour longer than planned, and I set off in darkness from the Isberg Trailhead shortly before 4 AM. I plodded through the burn area in darkness, climbing slowly initially, then steeply up to the Niche about 2 miles in. It was colder than I had anticipated with only a T-shirt and wind shell, so I continued along without stopping, passing Cora Lakes in darkness at 4 miles and continuing all the way to Sadler Lakes shortly after sunrise, 9 miles and 3 hours into my day.
I took my first break here, about 1/3 of my mileage complete but with significant cross country travel ahead. After a short snack, I continued along the trail and left where it cut west to Isberg Pass, continuing north on easy slabs and grassy benches to McGee Lake.
I was good on water, so continued past up the drainage to the saddle just west of Long Mountain. This gave me my first look at Foerester Peak for the day, peaking out from behind a number of false summits on the connecting ridgeline. Although the ridgeline would be more direct, it looked fairly tedious, with the safer bet to drop down to Harriet Lakes then climb back up to Foerester. So down I went, skirting patches of lingering ice and snow in the north facing recesses down to the middle lake where I filtered some water for the remainder of the climb.
The cross country continued to be quite pleasant, easy grade through grassy meadow leading to simple granite steps and benches up to the unnamed lake immediately southwest of the summit of Foerester. Although it looked like I could climb the face directly, it looked like it would be an unpleasant talus and scree slog, opting for an ascending traverse across the slabs and granite talus to high saddle immediately south of the summit.
The final summit ridgeline looked like it would provide some interesting scrambling, and I did my best to stick to the crest of the ridge as much as I could, dropping to slopes on the southwest side when gendarmes blocked progress. I reached the summit at about 10:30 AM, taking about 6 and a half hours, a bit faster than I had budgeted. I sat down from the wind and had an early lunch, the entirety of the Clark Range to the west stretching from Merced Peak to Clark Peak, Mount Florence dominating the view to the north, and Mount Lyell and Maclure to the northeast. Mount Ritter and Banner Peak were to the southeast with the views stretching south towards Mount Gabb and Seven Gables.
Once I finished my sandwich I started back down, this time utilizing sandy slopes to the south before traversing back to the high saddle. I sat down to empty the sand from my shoes and was surprised to find another hiker slogging up from the south, on day 2 of a multiday backpack starting near Devils Postpile and finishing at Saddlebag Lake. We chatted for a while while his friend caught up, then I parted ways as I dropped off the saddle back towards Harriet Lakes, making fast work down the granite benches and open grassy fields. I took a slightly different line back up to the saddle with Long Mountain, a bit further west but utilizing a nice ramp system that led directly to the saddle.
Long Mountain was only a quarter mile to the east, and considering I was a bit ahead of schedule, it seemed like a no brainer to add on, fully realizing I was still over 10 miles from the trailhead. There was decent scrambling along the connecting ridgeline with quickly fizzled out to the flat summit covered in boulders.
There were several boulders vying for the high point, so I visited a few, found no summit register, then dropped down slopes directly southwest towards McGee Lake. I took more or less the same line getting back to Sadler Lake, stopping to filter a liter of water, although the lake was somewhat stagnant this late in the season.
With about 9 miles to get back to the car and back on the trail, I kicked it into high gear, moving as quickly as possible back to Cora Lakes and the Niche. I burned through the liter of water I had filtered as I reentered the burn area, but found no running water to filter, the stream running from Cora Lakes nearly dry in September. Although there were some scummy puddles had I been desperate, I pressed on to the car where I had water waiting, the 27 mile day taking about 12.5 hours. Another SPS summit in the books, although with only my 6th new SPS Peak in mid-September, I still had some work to do before the winter storms came.