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I picked the wrong pass over Kearsarge and spent 9 hours in a hail storm
Two years ago I stood at the trail split near Onion Valley with a storm rolling in and had to choose between Kearsarge Pass or Glen Pass to get to my resupply at Charlotte Lake. I picked Glen because it looked shorter on the map, and 20 minutes later I was getting pelted by hail sideways for 9 hours straight. My buddy still sends me the photo of me hiding under a rock like a wet cat. Has anyone else misread a pass on the map and paid for it?
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kevin_adams20d ago
Glen Pass is a trap on paper because it sits at 11,978 feet versus Kearsarge at 11,760, but the real killer is the west side. That descent drops you into the bighorn plateau area with zero tree cover, so when the weather turns you are just a lightning rod standing in the open. I made the same call on a JMT thru in 2019 and got caught in a cell that dumped pea sized ice for close to an hour before I could even get my rain shell out. The map shows a shorter line but it does not show you the exposure or the way those storms funnel up the canyon.
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