Re: XC Vogelsang HSC to Sunrise HSC

Hi,

This is my first post.

In August I am staying at Vogelsang HSC on Aug 6 and Sunrise HSC on Aug 7.

I'm planning on taking the normal HSC trail through Merced HSC - which will be a challenging day.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried a more direct cross country route.
Thoughts? Advice?

Possible route - starting Vogelsang HSC -
Tuolumne Pass - Reymond - Nelson - Matthes Lakes - Long Meadow - Sunrise HSC...mostly x-country...
Have done this multiple times but in the reverse direction, always carrying a full backpack, but never all in one day.
(see TOPO)

Lots and lots o different options if you want to cross country...
Not a huge distance... all less than 8 miles

Pretty much it's gonna be past Emeric or Reymann. A lot of ways around there work...
done about 5 different ways... and there are many more that could be done
So... it's about what you want to see and how you can do cross country vs. trail...
and if you enjoy a bit of route finding for yourself and such...

With the trail it's about 17 ... which you could cut some by cutting up Dolly Dome area...

Since Vog to Merced via Fletcher is nearly all downhill... that half is fairly simple
and since u are advanced I would say you should be able to knock it off in 4 hours easily.
The second half is a nice stroll to start from Merced Lake thru Echo Valley before
you climb... from there it's a nice trail and ...

Well.. if you have the stamina... imo... you should do that trail... start early...
and take a long break in the middle of the day. 17-ish miles is not out of the ordinary.
And it sounds to me you will make a lot better time on trail.
Maybe come back another time and skip staying at the HSC and take whatever
time you need to do routes between the two...

That's my 2 cents.

Have fun

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Isn't the Internet great? I signed up for this forum based on advice from the JMT Forum at yahoo. In a few hours I have a couple of excellent answers to work on from you nice people.

I've done between the two camps on trail in a day a few times. Once with XC near Dolly Domes, and have done the Nelson/Reyman/Tuolumne Pass XC route.

If you haven't done the trail, I'd say do the trail this time, it's quite nice. I like to do trail to get to know area and then XC is nice to become intimate with the surroundings.

And people will argue Vogelsang Pass and Lewis Creek better than Fletcher. I've done both many times, both lovely. I actually love Fletcher. The tralis between these camps are not penalties in terms of scenery, imo. I've done may/sunrise/Merced in a day a few times... 17miles shouldn't be too much, start early, enjoy.

Someone thought I should mention we did that with full backpack (no boat tho!). We do as part of what we call the Double Marathon. Hit all the HSCs in two days (bit of XC Magic), about 26 miles/day.

This year, the goal is entire GCT from WW and touch all HSC camps in 3 days.. Still about 26 miles/day, handy that! A group of nutty friends likes to do long days for the heck of it. And it's pretty country. And we like to do before the camps open. Minimize horse poopy... The Great Pink One is quite capable of joining us, but eschews the trip because it's predominately trail. We do trail mostly because that way we can all go at our desired pace and meet up easily at certain points without worry.

Not all of us are XC-navigation capable as Basilbop and Chick-on.