Mount Inyo and Not Keynot in CA

pics by Harlan W.S.
Oct 30, 2010

This trip was organized by Kathy W (of the SoCal peakbagger’s group), who showed remarkable patience. We were principally supposed to try Keynot. The Inyo Range looked dry on Friday; but 6” of powder snow was dropped on high overnight, and on top of slippery ground, it proved to be a game-changer.

We had 12 folks. I parked my 2003 Subaru Outback about 300’ up from the 2WD parking; there was a substantial washout right after that. KW was able to get her real 4WD up all the way (500’), but many folks had to walk from the 2WD parking.

We got to about 10850 on Keynot before the N-facing very slippery chute made us turn around. A few of us headed up Inyo instead, but that put us fairly late into a short day. I ended up with 7000’ of accumulated elevation gain for the day.

First we went up toward Keynot.	Kevin, before sunrise and on the 1^st ridge.	View down to KW’s truck, with the cloud-enshrouded Sierra in back.
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Folks come up the ridge, as the sun hits the Sierra, west across the valley.	More folks on the ridge, in the dim light.	Sierra to the W.
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View NE as sun hits the top of the Inyo ridge.		The terrain levels out a bit.
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Wimps! It’s not that cold.	Kevin comes up.
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View SW as we head toward Keynot, which is actually partly in the clouds, and is the left-most ridge in this picture.	Clouds shroud the false summit of Inyo to the NNW.	OK, back toward Keynot.
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	We started to drop west of the Rocky pinnacle (R side of this picture)…	…and hit pretty slick, nasty slopes
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So we started coming back down. A bunch of us started toward Mount Inyo…	…and I took almost no pictures till I came across this crude shelter. The ridge to Inyo was a bit confusing, and I started calling for Kevin, whom I hadn’t seen in a while. Well, actually there were two Kevins; the one that I thought I was calling to had run out of water and turned back.	So I got to the top of Inyo (here looking back on Keynot to SSE), and took a few pics to prove to Pete Y that I was there.
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View N from Mount Inyo…	View SE…	I wanted to get out of Dodge, so I forewent my normal balance pose.
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The nasty false summit, Keynot in back. I was shouting and about this time heard an answer; it was Kevin #2. Since he was just about 100’ below the summit, I waited for him and we soon carefully worked our way back to the less-confusing saddle.	Bedsprings. I parted with Kevin at ~9100’. He assured me that he had 2 headlamps, and was descending pretty expertly with his trekking poles. I later discovered that he actually taught mountaineering courses.	View back down, ~8900’.
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View back down, ~8700’.	Well, I should have followed my good instincts and taken the use trail off the ridge. But I looked down and thought I saw people waiting on the ridge, so I started jogging down this massively steep section of nasty, nasty talus. Soon I rolled my ankle, and had to descend the next 1500’ much more carefully. The “people” waiting below turned out to be rocks! I got back to the car just after the sun set behind the Sierra, and Kevin #2 soon followed.
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