The Last Chance Range had long been on Matt and my lists to explore. We had originally planned to explore the Inyos, but there was a still a lot of snow, so we shifted our plans. We rendezvoused in Big Pine and caravaned over the pass through a storm. We slept the night in Eureka Valley and set off at first light the next morning.
The plan was to do a two day loop south through the Last Chance Range and then potentially explore the northern part of the range on the last day. The plan went off without a hitch. Well, there was one hitch. Two minutes into the trip, my backpack snap broke, and we had to go back to fix it. Luckily, Matt had a quick stitcher, and the new stictches held for the whole trip. The ridge walking south through the Last Chance range was slow but beautiful. The views looking down on the Eureka Dunes were especially breathtaking. By the first night, we had traversed most of the ridge.
The next morning, we headed down to the same canyon I had taken down the week prior. This time, instead of going south on the road, we went north, back to our cars. It was a long road walk, but the miles flew by as our conversation kept our minds distracted.
The next day we drove a car up to the ghost town of Crater. From there, we headed north into the range. The northern part of the range also provided incredible views. We dropped down to a spring, and then walked back to our cars, making a figure eight. Matt stayed in the valley a few more days to do another trip, but unfortunately I had to leave to go back to work.
Matt wrote about this trip much more eloquently on his website here: https://mattymorrison.com/pages/trips/routes/lastchance.html
Anthony Ottati 