Moonwalk Peak 12633′, Moonshot Peak 12830′, Mount Gilbert 13115′ and Mount Johnson 12870′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 9:10
Distance: 11.3 miles
Elevation Gain: 4,750′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: South Lake- pit toilets
Winter had come early to the Sierra with a few inches of snow dusting the high peaks and a bigger round of snow expected the following weekend. I was sitting at 9 new SPS summits for the season, one shy of my annual goal of 10, and I wanted to sneak in one more day before shifting my attention to fall climbing and desert hiking. With the recent snow and variable conditions, I wanted to do something a little easier, and had been saving the double header of Mount Gilbert and Mount Johnson for such an occasion. Sitting along the Sierra Crest above South Lake out of Bishop, they were a pair of summits that could be knocked out in a relatively short day, giving myself a buffer of time should the unconsolidated snow slow me down. With this in mind, I still left Mammoth early, starting by headlamp in darkness as the trail slowly climbed out of South Lake. I took the signed junction to Treasure Lakes, my first time up this drainage, and was briefly confused as the trail began to descend. Checking my map, I could see that this route actually lost several hundred feet, only to regain it climbing back up to Treasure Lakes. It took me just over an hour to reach the lakes at 10,600′, the faintest hint of sunrise over the White Mountains to the east. I found a log crossing in the dark partially iced over, and carefully worked across, picking up a use trail on the far side that continued up the drainage. I was able to follow this intermittently to the unnamed lake at 11,300′ and stopped to filter water, as I assumed this would likely be my last water source once I gained the Sierra crest.
Treasure col, the low point on the crest between Mount Johnson and Moonwalk Peak had a few inches of unconsolidated snow running from the base to the notch. Although I was wearing my Scarpa Mountaineering boots and had my crampons, it did look like the south facing slopes on Moonwalk Peak were completely snow free and would go at class 3. So after topping up two liters of water, I continued up the Treasure Lakes drainage, heading up class 2 scree on the south slopes of Moonwalk Peak as it funneled into a gully coming almost directly off the summit. This actually turned into very pleasant snowfree scrambling, with clean class 3 slabs to the right and large granite boulders to the left.
I followed this drainage all the way up to the Sierra crest, then made the 5 minute detour up slabs studded with knobs and chicken heads to the summit of Moonwalk Peak named by Andy Smatko who claimed the first ascent the day of the moon landing July 20th, 1969. From the summit, the rest of my day lay out before me, with a nearly snow free traverse along the crest to nearby Moonshot Peak along to the summit of Mount Gilbert, a drop into the sandy basin over to Treasure Col, and then a snowy class 3 climb of the North Ridge of Mount Johnson, which would no doubt be the crux for the day.
I thought there might be some snow on the north side of Moonwalk Peak as I dropped off but the small patches were trivial and easy to avoid, with the only really pockets of snow from windblown collections under boulders, easy to avoid. Once past the notch between Moonwalk and Moonshot, I stuck to the ridge fairly directly, finding this to have the best scrambling and most solid rock, although still predominantly class 2. I quickly cover the distance to the second summit, taking less than 30 minutes from the summit of Moonwalk to the summit of Moonshot. Finding no register and with a good amount of cold wind being blown up from the valley below, I dropped off quickly, continuing west towards the summit of Mount Gilbert, my third peak for the day but first SPS summit. The traverse over was similarly almost entirely class 2, with a little class 3 sprinkled in to keep things at least a little interesting, although easily avoided if one wanted. The summit itself is fairly flat with the highpoint a collection of boulders on the far end, with the summit plateau holding about 2 inches of snow, some of the deepest I had to deal with on the day so far.
It had taken me under 4.5 hours from the trailhead, a bit ahead of schedule although I hadn’t had to contend with almost any snow. Looking across to the north ridge of Mount Johnson, that would clearly change. The north ridge of Johnson was reportedly pretty solid class 3 and with sunlight no longer hitting the north face mid fall, it was holding quite a bit of snow. Wasting no time, I dropped off the summit of Mount Gilbert fairly directly, finding nice class 2 sand to boot ski down into the intervening basin. I took a diagonal line across boulders on the northwest slopes of Moonwalk Peak to Treasure Col, requiring a little bit of easy class 3 to reach the low point of the col and start of the north ridge route up Mount Johnson.
From below, I could see the areas that I expected to give me trouble, some steep scrambling off the notch, a snowier spot half way up, a gendarme on the upper ridge, and the final summit push, which was out of sight. The initial scrambling from the notch was easier than it looked, with a nice class 3 staircase that moved around and to the right of a squat pillar. Beyond this was a stretch of easy class 2 with pockets of snow to the next obstacle, a snow ramp and step. This would probably be an nonissue when dry, but the easy option on the left held quite a bit of unconsolidated snow. I instead opted for drier class 3 rock to get above this short step, bringing me to the top of an indistinct bump along the ridgeline.
I was able to drop off this on the northeast side, with some nice class 3 scrambling to get around one final pillar via a ramp system on the right side. The last several hundred feet of the ridge narrowed to clean slabs, thankfully snow free, and I followed it nearly to the summit before escaping to the north face to snowier but more low angled terrain up to the high point.
The traverse from Gilbert had taken me a little under 2 hours at a casual pace and the north ridge was as fun as advertised, even with the loose snow. I took my lunch break at the summit, having even brought along a summit pickle like Levi Cover.
There was one final question mark of the day- how much snow would I need to contend with in the lower drainage back to the unnamed lake at 11,300′. The initial drop off to the southeast was almost completely snow free, and I was able to boot ski down pockets of sand into the drainage below. While there were some pockets of snow on north facing aspects, these were overall easy to avoid, and I quickly made it back to the lake at 11,300′.
I stop to filter a liter of water before continuing past, getting back to Treasure Lakes shortly before 1 PM, the first sign of any other hikers on the day. I took one final short break before starting back to the trailhead, the short uphill section not quite as bad as I was picturing given the overall short outing. There were great pockets of aspen on the hike out, most of the other hikers leaf peeping with peak fall colors in the basin. It was about 2 PM when I reached the trailhead, the outing taking just over 9 hours for the four summits. I hopped in the car and headed back to Mammoth to rejoin my family and grab an early dinner in town.
