One of my 'big-5 hikes' was to do Sepulcher Mountain this year. (I've actually gotten in two of my big 5 as you will see later in the blog!) Sepulcher overlooks the Mammoth area where we live and Gardiner and is next to Electric Peak (one of my big 5). The hike involves a climb of around 3200 feet if you leave from Mammoth or 2000 feet if you leave from Glen Creek trailhead (as we did). I met Molly (a person I randomly emailed to go hiking with) at the Glen Creek/Bunse Peak trailhead to head out for Sepulcher at araound 7:00 AM in the morning. I was lucky to run into River Otter swimming in a wide portion of a creek that flows around the base of Bunsen. Katrina dropped me off just below the parking lot and I hiked up to it (about a quarter mile) and heard a loud splosh! I thought, uh oh, a bear just took a dive and I am right next to it! I slowly crept up to the pond to find River Otter doing the same from the pond.
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| River Otter at Bunsen Peak |
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| River Otter swimming at Bunsen Peak |
On our way up Sepulcher, just after the trail leaves the the Snow Pass trail, we ran into a mother Moose and her calf down in a wet vegetated valley. She kept herself between her calf and Molly and myself almost the whole time, this was the best picture I could get of both of them.
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| Mother and Baby Moose at the base of Sepulcher |
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| Heading up Sepulcher, forested region on top |
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| Electric Peak from halfway up Sepulcher |
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| Little Quadrant, Quadrant, and Mt Holmes from Sepulcher |
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| Mt Everts from Sepulcher |
After reaching the top of Sepulcher (quite a huff), we spent some time exploring the 'spooky' top of the mountain. There are lots of trees, many wrapped by the winds and snow/ice that must come ripping through here. A lot of the trees are all permanently 'swaying' or bent in the prevailing winter wind direction. Kinda reminded me of some of the scenes from the movie 'The Cell'. At the very top are the Sepulcher that the peak was named for. Huge, weird rock formations that look like giant headstones of tombs. From Gardiner, the top of Sepulcher looks like a graveyard, once on top you can walk around these large objects. After eating lunch, we headed all the way down to Mammoth (3200 foot descent). We almost ran into a bear (I think) on the way down. We came across a recently split log that was full of termites. After walking a while longer, Molly and I sat and ate wild berries. She wondered why the bushes had not been picked clean, we walked about a 100 yards further and came across a big pile of fresh bear scat! I did a lot of clapping the rest of the way down :)
After returning home I quickly took Pirate for a walk to Joffe Lake to cool my knees and calfs, and then spent an hour napping :) In total, about 10.5 miles and 2000 feet elevation gain in under 6 hours, not bad!
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| Trees on top of Sepulcher |
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| Wildflowers on summit of Sepulcher |
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| Gardiner from Sepulcher |
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| Molly enjoying lunch with Electric looming in the background |
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| A sepulcher on Sepulcher |
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| Another sepulcher on Sepulcher |
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| More wild flowers |
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| Bear Poop! |
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| Indian Paint Bruch |
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| Terraces at the end of the hike |
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