A while ago I was involved with a guiding company who sent me out leading long backpacks in the High Sierra. Certainly not the worst kind of employment. The following ideas stem from hundreds of trail miles and many, many nights under the stars.

We did mostly west to east crossings of the entire range, with an attempt on Mt. Whitney along the way. See map. The trips were designed to fit in a typical 9 day, Friday to Sunday type holiday, and had to average about 10 miles a day for that to work. Over the years we tried three different west side trail heads, all distinctly different but convening for the latter part. In terms of effort all of them were about equal, yet the scenery and sense of remoteness varied tremendously. These routes are detailed on the following pages, with lots of images:

High Sierra Trail - the gold standard
Rattlesnake Canyon - southern remoteness
Colby Pass - high country grandeur

The trips were led as traditional backpacks, without the use of stock support or drops and caches. In other words, all the food, fuel and supplies needed for the trip were in our backpacks on day one. We traversed terrain that was rugged and steep, involving many daily hours on the trail, with serious elevation gain and loss. This, pared with those massive packs, made for a strenuous outing for clients and guides alike, similar to the toughest domestic backcountry trips advertised at the time. Add to this the extreme isolation of the middle sections, and the commitment factor was pretty high for an average vacation.

A typical trip had 10-12 clients and 2 guides. All nights were spent on the ground in tents or open air, some at altitudes over 11000'. Temperatures ranged from lower teens in early morning to 90+ degrees in the afternoon sun. We had snow storms and a couple of tropical cyclones with rain, rain, rain. Even though this is not the Rockies, it is still prudent to be on thunderstorm watch during high crossings. But, being summertime in the Sierras, the vast majority of our days were clear, sunny and cool. Only on one trip was the Whitney climb in jeopardy, and even then things worked out.

Of the 80 or so folks I led across the Sierras, two had to give up underway. One with an overuse injury and the other had simply underestimated the physical involvement in relation to his age. The first was taken out on horseback after a trail crew alerted the rangers. The other walked the easiest way back in company with my assistant guide. In the remaining pile, only one man had to give up on the Mt. Whitney summit attempt.
And all these people were mostly novices with very little long distance hiking experience. Many didn't know how to pitch a tent, care for their feet or stay warm. Even the ones with some useful background was totally unaccustomed to hauling a sinfully heavy pack up and down severe hills day after day. Yet they all did it, and had an amazing time, judging from letters and comments. We witnessed some incredible transformations out there. In a matter of 5 or 6 days office clerks and school teachers turned to mountain dirtbags with the first grasp on wilderness sense. Most feedback we got told us that folks wished they had done more to get in shape before the trip.

An interesting type of clients were the ones possessed by the socalled Mt. Whitney Fever. These individuals, usually men in some advanced stage of midlife crisis, had but one goal: The Summit. They were blind to the many awesome sights encountered in the 60+ miles of gorgeous terrain traversed to get to that little bonus sidetrip. Their main topics of conversation, if not conducted as an interrogation of the guide concerning the exact details of the upcoming climb, dealt mostly with the high and impressive peaks they'd ascended in the past. These folks was strangely high maintenance, but not incredible numerous. Even stranger was their need to have a guide, as many of them had a fair bit of experience, albeit shallow.

The guides prepared all meals on 2 MSR Whisperlite stoves. These are rugged, field maintainable units of great durability. In my experience the only weak link of the Whisperlite is the plastic fuel pressure pump. To provide abundant back-up all the fuel bottles had the caps replaced with pumps.
We used a couple of big gallon pots with foil lids, for all cooking and brewing, producing classic one course/one pot stews. Even though we used our experience to simplify and streamline every possible facet of the food issue, it was still very challenging, both in prep work and execution. One guide working full time could purchase and repack everything in our portable bearproof canisters in one long 10 hour day. Besides food this also included all the related details of poop bags, fuel, and so on.
We tried to stay away from the prepackaged sodium rich junk disguised as nutrition, such as freeze dried backpacker meals and MSG laden sauce packs. Over time we developed a meal plan based on good raw materials from the shelves of Trader Joe's and similar pseudo healthfood stores.
Quantity remained the big crux. As always we were walking the thin edge between adequate nutrition for constant strenuous activity and, on the other hand keeping an already heavy pack at a manageable level. On top of that, it all had to fit in the bear canisters. But the worst scenario, hungry clients, posed even greater implications. Scrupulous notes containing food weight in grams vs number of clients was saved and cross referenced to actual events and later adjusted to the next trip. Such anal bookkeeping ended up removing nearly all stress associated with feeding a dozen hungry backpacker 3 meals a day, for 10 days straight. See here for sample menu.

Besides the two aforementioned evacs, medical emergencies were few. Moderately severe cases of heat exhaustion (especially on the climb up to Wallace Camp in the afternoon heat). Perpetual runs. Mild AMS. And then the mass assault of blisters. This last issue we spent alot of time on, and became, by sheer volume, experts in preventing and treating these little irritating annoyances. We also discovered the direct link between good tips and dealing with someone's dirty, stinky feet with a smile, however forced it might be..

These are long, arduous trails no doubt challenging to many, but the single greatest hurdle is the transportation issue. If you're not part of a guiding operation with minivans and drivers on constant stand-by, this problem might be hard to overcome.
There's at least 8 hours of driving between entry and exit points, and neither are serviced by shuttles or public buses. In fact some of them are as remote as you can get in a vehicle these days. So what to do? No easy solution here, especially not if any sort of time schedule is involved. The method I would lean towards is simply to drive up and start hiking and worry about such petty details later. Things tend to solve themselves with an opportunistic outlook.

All photos on the following pages by fivenineclimber, unless noted otherwise.

High Sierra Trail - the gold standard
Rattlesnake Canyon - southern remoteness
Colby Pass - high country grandeur