Distance: 9.9 miles round trip on trail and cross country
Summit Elevation: 12864'
Elevation Gain: 3136'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 2.5
Round trip time: 7 hours 30 minutes
Recommended water: 104 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free at Mosquito Flat parking lot
Difficulty: Strenuous
Madison (Uncle Rico) Christian invited me to tackle Mount Starr in the Eastern Sierra. We met up in Bishop and drove to the Mosquito Flats trailhead, relatively uncrowded this time of year. We started at 7:30 AM with temps around 35F. Within the first mile, we reached the Mono Pass trail branching right. The trail junction was in the shadow of Mount Starr to the north. Shortly after that, we passed the Ruby Lake trail junction. From there, a series of switchbacks zigzagged up the north east flank of Starr to a (currently) dry gully feeding Ruby Lake. The trail continued up to Mono Pass at just over 12000'. We met another hiker at the pass who was also headed to Starr. After chatting a bit, Madison and I began to climb one of two obvious use trails on the west face of Starr.
The use trails braided, then faded. We drifted south ascending sand, gravel, and intermittent boulders. We were back in the shade on the west face and it was quite cold. Some of the shaded boulders had a thin, invisible layer of ice. When we reached the ridge, I expected a relatively easy traverse to the summit. However, we needed to drop off the top of the ridge for faster progress. We scrambled over and around large boulders, but the rock was solid. Most of our ridge work was class 2, with some class 3 when we didn't want to give up more elevation. Since the summit was near the north end of the ridge, it might have been better to stick to a 45 degree angle from the pass. The summit was small with room for at most two people. We took turns on the summit, then signed one of three registers in plastic containers. The 360 views were killer. We were lucky with the weather and saw no smoke from the huge Garnet Fire raging in Fresno county. About 15 minutes later, two other hikers joined us on top. As we started down, we waved at the hiker we met at the pass, who was almost to the finish. We decided to drop almost straight down the west face with a combination of scrambling and scree skiing. We separated a little to keep from dislodging rocks on each other. I doubt a direct ascent would be easier or more fun that doing the ridge traverse. We ended up dropping about 100' below the pass. On the way back, we took the Ruby Lake trail to the shore, looking at our options for climbing Lookout Mountain. After some consideration, we decided to save it for a future outing. I would have needed to filter some water and we were both feeling sluggish. Starr was an idyllic end of summer destination.
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