Pinoche Peak 5769′ and Brown Peak 5651′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 4:40
Distance: 9.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 1960′
Crux: Class 2
Companions: Naya
Trailhead: Road 3S30- no services
Splitting the South Fork of the Merced River from Merced River proper is Pinoche Ridge, a series of summits over 5,000′ just west of Yosemite National Park, including Pinoche Peak 5769′ and Brown Peak 5651′. I had looked at the ridgeline dozens of times driving out of Yosemite Valley and had been meaning to make it a point to tag them, but always found it hard to justify the time with much more interesting hiking in the Valley nearby. But a series of storms left all the rock in the Valley wet making for a good opportunity to explore the ridgeline without too much valley-FOMO. Driving in on the 41, I turned off towards Yosemite West just before Glacier Point Road, following roads into the small community and out the other side. The road transitioned from pavement to dirt, and even with some very thin snow patches and puddles, the road was in very good shape. I had hoped to be able to take it all the way to Cathewood Saddle, but found it completely impassable from a mudslide just below the highpoint of Henness Ridge, so I parked the car and headed out on foot.
Although the road had been quite clear up to the mudslide, I immediately encountered numerous downed trees, the hike almost intermittently within the burn scar of the Ferguson Fire of 2018. Some of the down logs were massive, and I needed to spot Naya as she scrambled to jump over some of the larger ones. We went over and under a few dozen trees just getting to Cathewood Saddle, making me feel a bit nervous about how the rest of the day would go.
But the forest above the saddle had been relatively spared from the fire, and I set off cross country up the steep slopes, losing the trail in the forest duff. Although steep, gaining the ridgeline was relatively straightforward with only a few brushy pockets, and I soon had the volcanic plug of summit rock in view.
It was about 10:30 AM when I hit the summit, taking under an hour from the parking area despite the trail conditions. There were nice views down towards El Portal and the Merced River along with the South Fork of the Merced River. Some of the higher summits of the Clark Range were just peeking out in the distance, as was Mount Hoffman to the northeast.
Brown Peak to the west looked fairly close, and after a short break, I dropped down the ridgeline to find the trail. There was some class 2 scrambling down the western ridgeline of Pinoche Peak, nothing terribly difficult although enough to give a Sheepadoodle some pause in a few spots.
After dropping into a short brushy gully, we picked up the trail, well-defined and brush free. We followed this as it contoured to the south of intermediate peak 5445′. As we rounded the sub summit, the trail completely disappeared into a thicket of manzanita. I backtracked and worked back up to the ridgeline, finding a nice use trail that had taken the place of the completely overgrown trail downslope to the south. The brush increased as I grew closer to Canty Meadow at the base of Brown Peak, and we found ourselves again scrambling over and around logs, taking over an hour to reach the saddle from the summit of Pinoche. The saddle hardly qualified as a meadow with large pines and some old mining equipment, and Naya quickly found a large mud puddle and dove right in.
Although there were some semi-cleared old mining roads at the saddle, the route to up to the summit of Brown Peak was trail less, and some of the most burned terrain since the start of the hike. Although the summit was only a few hundred feet above, climbing around the burned logs, fallen trees and rebounding manzanita was tedious, and we hit the summit shortly after noon. There were a few spot vying for the high point and I stopped at them all, found no summit register, then took a break on a rock in a small clearing.
Looking over to Naya, I was surprised to see at least a dozen ticks on her chest and snout, having walked through a tick nest at some point since Canty Meadow below. I pulled off as many as I could find before heading down, trying to find a decent route with as little brush as possible to avoid picking up any more. I would stop periodically to check her for the rest of the hike, probably pulling off over 20 by the end of the day, and not finding the last few until after her overdue haircut the next day. Hiking back east, we followed the use trail along the ridgeline, this time going up and over Peak 5445′ before rejoining the trail.
We were able to follow this along the southern slopes of the summit on Pinoche Peak as it made a traversing descent into the forest back towards Cathewood Saddle. This unfortunately brought me once again to a heavily burned area, and the trail disappeared in thick brush and leaves just before hitting the saddle. Back on the road, we were able pick up the pace even with the downed trees, the entire outing taking a little over 4.5 hours. I did one more tick check on both of us before hopping in the car and heading to pick up my daughter.