Hike Sawtooth Peak, Spanish Needle, Lamont Peak Traverse Owens Peak Wilderness Area, CA

May 23, 2020 — What a great traverse to wrap up the peaks I was most excited for in the southern Sierra area. This traverse hits Sawtooth Peak, Lamont Benchmark, Spanish Needle, East Lamont, Lamont, and West Lamont Peaks. I met up with a new friend Tyler, this after spending some time planning a trip/route and untimately settling on this one. He's a very capable hiker and climber, and I was thrilled to find we could spend the whole day talking while still making quick time, and it made the route that much better. Hoping for more soon, new friend!

In order to do this route, we needed to set up a shuttle to avoid 4+ miles of road walking. You can definitely make it a loop if you're okay with the additional road miles. We parked the end car here (35.78777, -118.07201), and drove to the Pacific Crest Trail trailhead at the coordinates marked for this trip report. We set out along the pleasant PCT, making quick work of the first few miles to the saddle south of Sawtooth Peak. A steep slope led to the summit, a social trail helping us out most of the way. Toward the top, the brush became a bit thicker and we needed a minute to be sure we were still going a viable route. The summit block requires Class 2, but otherwise there's no scrambling for this ascent, just steepness.

Back at the PCT, we followed it south to the eastern saddle of Lamont Benchmark. This smaller peak required a sandy ascent, but had great views from its Class 3 summit block. Being a central point of our planned route, we could see our entire plan for the day. We were excited to keep moving.

We followed the PCT for a while longer and made it to a viewpoint of Spanish Needle, our next peak on the list. We didn't expect the route to its high point to be quite so tedious, and fair warning that the only thing to look forward to on this one is the summit ridge. A social trail took us off the PCT and headed south, where we side-hilled the east slopes of Spanish Needle. Dropping too low and you'll have to re-ascend, and going too high would result in getting cliffed out. We did a pretty good job on the ascent, but failed miserably coming back. I've included what I thought was the best route on my attached map. The route involves crossing over multiple talus fields, scrambling up loose and dirty gullies, and dealing with sappy pine needles and downed trees. Not super fun. After about 40 minutes, we made it to the ridge, which became more pleasant. We encountered a couple of Class 2/3 moves and were finally at a false summit viewpoint of the technical section of the route leading to the true summit. We actually saw another group on their way back down, surprisingly.

The route involves descending about a hundred feet to Spanish Needle's northern saddle. This section involved short Class 3 sections with no exposure. Once at the saddle, we located a Class 3+ scramble to get up to a unique slab. The slab wasn't steep enough to be dangerous. Another Class 3 move past a tree brought us up to the final push. The route we took starts at a notch on the right and climbs a somewhat exposed Class 3 section using a set of granite flakes. The summit views were quite nice.

Back at the PCT, we headed to the eastern saddle of East Lamont Peak, leaving the PCT on a social trail. We were immediately happy to see the trail since our research said this would be a bit of a bushwhack, but we were duped. The social trail headed along the northern slopes, which was not the way we wanted to go. Ignore the social trail and stay on the ridge as you ascend to East Lamont (I corrected this on my map). There is definitely a bit of brush, but it's not terrible. Along the ridge to East Lamont Peak, we had to maneuver two sets of rock outcroppings. The first was located a few hundred feet from the summit and had a 30 foot Class 2 downclimb bypass on the right, and the second involved a 50 foot Class 2+ brushy scramble to the summit (it's possible there's a more reasonable way up this second obstacle).

From East Lamont Peak, the traverse over to Lamont Peak was straightforward, except we probably stayed too high. I wasn't upset about it because we got nice views to the south, but you may want to keep just north of the ridge to avoid extra work. Soon we were at the base of Lamont Peak, an intimidating-looking set of massive boulders and brush. We hugged the cliff face and followed it to the summit with minimal unpleasantness and only a Class 2 section toward the top, the peak being far easier than anticipated.

From here we followed the eroded and well-cairned Lamont Peak Trail down along the peak's west ridge. It dropped us to the saddle with West Lamont Peak. This would be our last peak of the day. We stayed on the Lamont Peak Trail until we were just south of the West Lamont Peak summit, then left the trail in an attempt to find a route up. Some Class 2 and a little navigation led us around some boulders and to the midpoint of two potential high point blocks, separated from each other by a couple hundred feet of some Class 2/3 playful boulder-hopping. We weren't sure which was higher, so we got both. The western block was a Class 3+ slab that gave me pause, and the eastern block was Class 3 juggy fun. After the final summit, we got back on the Lamont Peak Trail and followed it down to the second car. The Lamont Peak Trail is underused and has a bit of overgrowth, but it doesn't warrant calling it condemned just yet. There were cairns in many spots that were hard to follow, and the views were really incredible. I recommend doing the route in the direction we did, since ascending the PCT is preferable to ascending the Lamont Peak Trail, which is much more steep.