Matt Noe and I had a beautiful weekend in the Sonora Pass area, working our way through some of the easier peaks remaining on the list and Tower peak. These were my four northern most remaining SPS peaks so they were high priority.
On the first day we woke up early and hiked Stanislaus, it was a short hike and a beautiful sunrise. Noe was predicting early storms, so we wanted to try to get up and off Stanislaus as quickly as possible. After Stanislaus, Disaster was next up, which we also made quick work of. We had a lot of time left in the day, so we decided to start the approach to Tower.
We hiked around nine miles in and set up camp. Matt was having some severe back issues, and at one point was not able to sit up. Noe and I were very concerned, but somehow Matt pushed through and we all summited Tower Peak the next morning, Tower Peak has a beautiful northern massif that is visible all the way from 108, 15 miles north. It felt great to finally summit Tower after being turned around 200 feet from the summit in 2023. We began the long hike back to the car, and soon were walking through meadows and forest again.
When we got back to our cars, Noe returned to Mammoth. Matt and I had another day planned. We drove down to Kennedy Meadows and picked up some hitchhikers — two eclectic PCT hikers who were running a bit late. At dinner that night, I strongly urged Matt that a twenty mile hike the next day might not be the best for his back. Somehow, Matt, who can push through anything, agreed and headed home the next morning.
I had a peaceful and uneventful hike on Blackhawk. It was nice to revisit an area I hadn’t seen since 2019, with very different eyes. I was lucky to get to pickup another set of hitchhikers on my way home, a very kind older couple who wanted to go from the PCT to Bridgeport.
Anthony Ottati 