Lofty ambitions for a Luddite: Matterhorn Peak

“If you love getting lost, traversing giant rocks for miles, scrambling, and asking yourself if you actually enjoy hiking, this “choose your own adventure” trail is for you!”

 - All Trails review of Matterhorn Peak

Mid June 2022: I slumped over on a rock, nauseous, heart pounding. Only a few days after arriving from almost two years at sea level, the mile amble to Heart Lake at 9000 feet in the Mammoth Lakes basin had me utterly beat.

Almost exactly three months later, I scrambled over the final few meters of narrow granite ridge to the vertiginous summit of Matterhorn Peak, weary after the six hour hike, but feeling strong. What a contrast!

The summer had been one of incrementally more difficult challenges, spurred on by friends in my mountain community and beyond. “You should do Matterhorn Peak next”, encouraged Matthias in early July. I looked it up on my go to online resource, All Trails.

“Pretty gnarly”

“By 1 PM we had not summitted” 

“This trail sucked out my soul, and not in a good way” (is there ever a good way of sucking out a soul?)

 “This baby was BANANAS”

But also:

“One of the most beautiful hikes I’ve ever done”....“awesome”.... “gorgeous” .....“incredible”

Starting at 7000 feet and topping out over 12,000 feet, over 7 miles, the majority off established trails, the hike was clearly a lofty ambition. Furthermore, a repeated theme in the All Trails reviews was navigational difficulties, even with the help of GPS and All Trails tracks:

 “The trail basically disappears, it’s navigable up to a point....the point we turned around. However that pretty purple line got drawn on AllTrails is a straight up lie.”

“ We lost the trail after the big scree field and had difficulties after our GPS failed in the middle of the hike“

I had noticed more and more people in the backcountry peering at GPS tracks on their phone for inspiration and guidance, as a quick and easy substitute for preparation and observation. But I’ve always been a bit of a Luddite. With my luck, my phone battery would die right when needed most, and besides, as a veritable old fart, it was beyond my technical ability to wrangle this information on a small screen with my stumpy fingers and I was too embarrassed to ask for help.

So I went old-school. I found an excellent trip report with detailed directions and photos, read it obsessively and printed it out along with a detailed map with the route marked. 

Old school maps and notes

A summer of preparation, a rest day beforehand, a Matthias-style hearty bacon and eggs breakfast in the predawn hours, and I was all set. The sky lightened to reveal mountain profiles softened by smoke as I drove north to Bridgeport. However, the air seemed clear as I approached the Twin Lakes trailhead. As I opened the car door, was relieved to find that there was no hint of campfire in the crisp air.

Smoke haze over Twin Lakes in the early morning

The first hour passed quickly on a switch-backing trail, a gentle introduction to the day. Once in Horse Creek, the sun finally hit and the layers came off. Now above the smoke haze, Matterhorn Peak, the highest of the aptly named Sawtooth Range and the northern terminal of the "High Sierra", came into view. It seemed an impossible distance above.

After the established trail petered out a few miles in, I worked my way up Horse Creek, following the path of least resistance, and finding the inevitable use trails, stopping from time to time to refer to my printed notes. At the head of the valley, it was time to ascend talus slopes to Horse Creek Pass. I spotted the rock formation to aim for, spied a feasible looking line and began the long trudge up.

Endless talus approaching Horse Creek Pass

A young man sat resting, exhausted, halfway up, his companion looking on with some concern. I stopped to chat as they were the first people I had seen all day. They had come directly from low elevation and the youngster was struggling with the altitude. They were considering turning back. His friend, a fit looking chap in his thirties with a European accent, asked if I was headed to the summit and if I was alone. When I replied in the affirmative, he looked concerned and said “The route finding gets a bit tricky up there – do you have a GPS?” I responded that I was running a paper map on an iBrain. He looked less than impressed, and proceeded to show me a photo on his phone which essentially a much smaller version of the large picture I had printed out, and to warn me about straying into more difficult terrain.  I appreciated his help, but wondered whether Alistair would have been treated in the same way. However, his skepticism was galvanising rather than discouraging, and I continued upwards with renewed determination.

Halfway up to the pass, looking back into Horse Creek

On finally reaching Horse Creek Pass, the summit of Matterhorn peak was at last visible above an intimidating steep and sandy gully. It looked like a time consuming, gut busting, interminable slog. And it was -the final mile took almost 2 hours of burning lungs and legs. 

Matterhorn Peak at the centre top and the dreaded sandy slope

The route went up the side of a prominent gendarme then traversed to the final ridge. This is looking down from the gendarme to Horse Creek Pass at the patch of snow

The final third class ridge from the top of the gendarme

After much slipping and sliding, I reached the solid rock of the final ridge and enjoyed some third class scrambling to the summit. 

Third class summit ridge

I stood on the dining table sized summit block....and promptly sat back down feeling quite dizzy after seeing over the edge. What a lunch spot! I decided that this "choose your own adventure trail" was indeed for me.

Pretty happy to be on top!

Summit view to the east

To the north, the Yosemite backcountry is a much more gentle landscape of granite domes and canyons.

Got a bit dizzy looking over the edge!

Little bit of downclimbing to be done

On the descent, the loose sandy slopes were much easier to negotiate, although route finding through the talus seemed even more challenging. Use trails appeared, headed in the wrong direction, and then petered out entirely. By this point, my phone battery was on its last legs, and GPS would have been worthless so the iBrain had a good workout. I had taken note of salient features on the way up and used this knowledge to point me in the right direction in the complex terrain. 

Amazing coloured rocks near Horse Creek Pass

Lower Horse Creek

Pleasant forest and stream close to the end

The Luddite method eventually brought me back to the established trail, down the inevitable painfully gentle switchbacks with the car in sight (veritable torture!) and through the last footsore stagger to crack open a celebratory Gatorade (as a beer would have pole-axed me - a brew came later) at the trailhead. Aaahhh. As I swigged the oddly cherry-flavoured electrolyte brew, I pondered what review I might leave on All Trails. Maybe something like:

“A challenging day to a lofty summit for a Luddite draft horse armed with a paper map and an iBrain”