Red Peak/Silver Peak/McConnell Peak/Tells Peak
10/8/16
After a weekend of being stuck in town because I was on-call, it was finally time to head back out to the Sierra. It was now finally October, so shoulder-season for the High Sierra. Leo and I decided to spend the weekend together, and we planned to do a day of climbing and a day of peak-bagging. Since we’d be in Tahoe, it was time to take a look at the OGUL list and see what would be good to tackle. I saw four peaks all in a line on a ridge that I’d had my eye on for a while — Ephrat had mentioned to me some time ago that those are great to knock out all in one day, but only in summer when the road isn’t covered in snow. I suggested this to Leo, and he was game.
We drove out Friday night, making it all the way to the trailhead and sleeping in the truck. We knew the next day would be a bit long (Bob’s trip report put it at 15mi, so we expected it to be a bit over that), so we got an early-ish start, waking up around 6:30am. We had some yogurt for breakfast and set off.
While the parking lot had been empty the night before, there were now a handful of other trucks parked near us and a bit further down the road. Hunting season was in effect, and it showed. We started hiking down a dirt road that was closed to traffic by a gate. Soon enough, we came across a hunter posted up, waiting in camouflage gear. We gave each other the nod and continued on. I was glad that Leo and I were both dressed in fairly bright colors.
The trail continues down the dirt road until turning off to the right onto a proper trail. Even though we’d be traversing four peaks on a ridge, still much of the day would be on trail, which was really nice. We made a wrong turn at one point, taking a side trail to Bassi Creek (a mistake Bob had also made on his trip and called out, but we still made the same error), but realized after only a few minutes and re-traced our steps back to the main trail.
At the lake below Red Peak.
The trail was flat for quite some time before we started to gain as we approached the ridge. The trail took us basically to the base of Red Peak, our first objective for the day. We arrived at a lake near the base, and then started to head off cross country upwards towards the summit. The going was fairly easy with solid footing as we continued on up. There had been only a small amount of snow here and there on the trail, and the same was true here. It turned to scrambling as we neared the top, and we traveled a bit on the ridge proper which was fun for the last hundred yards.
We made it to the first summit, Red Peak, around noon, and found the summit register, finding Bob’s entry with Matthew from 2009, along with Ephrat and Luca’s from 2012. I took a moment to appreciate that this was Leo’s first OGUL! (Can you believe it? All these trips to Tahoe and he’d never climbed an OGUL). We took some pictures and snacked a bit before heading on to the next peak, Silver. The plan for the rest of the day was to traverse along the ridge that connected Red to the remaining three peaks (all OGULs).
Leo looking ridiculously photogenic on the summit of Red Peak – his first OGUL!
Silver was about 3/4 of a mile from Red. We started down the ridge, descending a scrambling section at first before arriving at dirt again. There was definitely a bit more snow on the northern aspects, but not enough to cause much difficulty. The most annoying part was the bit of bushwhacking we encountered along the way as we proceeded. Sure enough though, we were soon at Silver, the second summit of the day — getting there around 1:30. There was another small register here, that Leo signed for us before we continued on to our next objective, McConnell.
Headed towards McConnell.
This next section of ridge traverse was the longest of the three traverses we’d do. There was some scrambling to get down from Silver, but then it was an easy walk on sandy slopes towards McConnell. We passed a false summit, and then made our way to the top of the true summit around 2:50. The views of Lake Tahoe were quite nice here. We searched, but found no summit register here. We took our shortest break thus far here and continued on to the last peak, Tells, eager to be on trail again.
The view of Lake Tahoe from up high.
We descended some tougher scrambling here. This aspect was a bit steeper than what we’d come across so far, so there was more snow here. We made it down, and then searched for the best way to continue up towards Tells. We had descended down to the right, and looked to see if there was a good way to get back up on top of the ridge. We investigated one possible route, but concluded that it was fifth class, so we continued down on the side of the ridge instead. As we got closer to the peak itself, it was easy to find a way up dirt slopes instead. Once back on top of the ridge, we soon came across the actual trail that leads to the summit. This trail doesn’t seem to be maintained anymore, but it was still quite nice to take up to the summit, up the final sandy slopes.
Looking back from the summit of Tells.
We made it to the last summit around 4:20. Four OGULs in one day! Not bad. We found a small makeshift register and added our own names written on the back of our map to add to the plastic jar. After some celebratory selfies, we headed back down the trail towards Forni Lake, which is below Tells. We took the trail down, losing it numerous times. Although it was often well-cairned, it was still easy enough to lose if you weren’t paying attention. We were pretty excited to make it to the lake, because this meant we’d be on maintained trail for the rest of the day. Wahoo!
Makeshift register.
Descending from the lake was pretty steep — but once the elevation loss was done, it was easy hiking. On our way out, we came across a couple more hunters that we chatted with. My legs were feeling pretty tired, so I was super excited to make it back to the car. We started the drive out and made dinner at a campground on the Union Valley Reservoir, enjoying a nice sunset on the shore of the reservoir.
Celebratory selfie. Four summits!