the way from death valley to the other (the western) side of the sierras is a pretty long one; after our golden canyon run we finally stopped at lake isabella, one of these lakes where the only approved activity seems to be to launch a rocket-propelled boat and ride in circles very fast. not good for running or hiking. so the next day we took off for sequoia national park, but the drive up to the park and some sightseeing along the way took quite a while, so we had another rest day in our schedule.
we stayed at lodgepole campground one day before the season started officially, which meant less paperwork. but there was already a pretty big number of campers, much more than in death valley, where we had whole campgrounds virtually for ourselves.
starting from lodgepole, we took off for a loop over panther gap and down to the high sierra trail, returning via moro rock to lodgepole. the climb from lodgepole to panther gap already covers almost 2000ft of climbing, so after a week of trail running this was pretty exhausting, and when arriving at panther gap, we were already pretty tired 
. however, instead of running down the connecting trail to the high sierra trail, we decided to try to get to alta peak, an 11200ft peak not too far (about 2.5 miles, i think) from panther gap.
on the trail to alta peak, there was very little snow, and only the very last stretch to the summit was still fully covered by a snow field. so getting to the summit was not too hard, and we even had the opportunity to look up who else had been up there in the summit register 
. we said hello to the alta peak marmot 
, spent some time admiring the great panorama of the high sierra, and then headed down. as usual, snow is really great for getting down fast 
, but since there was only little snow, we had to run on the trail most of the time. because of a little mishap on the way back down alta peak, we decided to take the direct route back instead of making the loop via moro rock.
in the end the complete out and back form lodgepole to alta peak took 4:45, but running time was probably closer to 3:00 (if that), because of the break at the top and the descent incident. adding the loop via moro rock would add a couple of miles and probably could be comfortably finished in 4 hours. next time!
Erik,
You will dig this video if you've run Alta Peak and throgh Sequoia National Park:
http://www.grc452.com/video/
Posted by: Tom Antl | Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 23:10