Dennison Mountain sits between the Tule and Kaweah Rivers on the southwestern edge of Sequoia National Park. Despite being fairly large and prominent, it sees few visitors due to its obscurity within a seldom visited section of the park. A series of winter storms had hit the region in late December, and I decided to head over there to hopefully see the post-storm sea of clouds and rime iced trees.
Peaks climbed
| Peak | Elevation | Topographic Prominence | Summit Coordinates (lat/lon) |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Dennison East" | 8,447 ft | 225 ft | 36.32010, -118.73740 |
| Dennison Mountain | 8,657 ft | 1,083 ft | 36.31846, -118.74639 |
Total Stats
12 miles
5,800 ft gain/loss
The last half mile of South Fork Dr was not drivable due to a washout, and I parked at an obvious pullout a short distance down the road. I got a leisurely late (for me) start just after 8:30am, plodding up the overgrown South Fork Trail. I had used this trail several years earlier to get to Homers Nose, and the lack of maintenance was obvious, with waist-high grass obscuring parts of the trail and several sections washed out by creeks and mudslides. It was still easy enough to follow for now, but maybe not much longer.
views of Homers Nose from the trail
I followed the trail for about 3 miles before veering off south up a prominent ridge bordering the west side of Snowslide Canyon. The terrain was steep and tree-covered and not extremely brushy, although there were a few short sections of thrashing. Just over 6,000 ft, I hit the snow line, and the amount of snow began rapidly increasing thereafter. As the ridge flattened out at 7,000 ft, I strapped on the snowshoes.
From spot elevation 7271, the ridge became rocky, stacked with large icy boulders which became sketchy to travel over with the snowshoes. This terrain looked to continue further up the ridge, so I veered southeast and dropped into Snowslide Canyon, which I would follow for the remaining distance to Dennison East, a subsidiary peak just east of the true summit which contained over 200 ft of prominence.
Dennison East poked out just above the cloud line, providing fabulous views towards Dennison Mountain as well as the Great Western Divide.
views from Dennison East
looking towards Dennison Mountain
The soft ridge between Dennison East and Dennison Mountain was straightforward. Usually there would be a decent amount of bushwhacking through buckthorn, but there was enough snow that these were mostly covered, allowing me to walk over them on snow. The temperature had warmed up dramatically here compared to the north facing aspects which I had been on earlier, and the biggest danger was the blocks of rime ice that would suddenly and without warning sheer off from the trees as they melted. I tried to avoid standing under trees, and quickly motored through if I did find myself under one.
I reached the summit of Dennison around 1:30pm. The clouds were quickly rising and I was able to enjoy about 15 minutes of good views before the whole area was enveloped in clouds.
Back down I went, reversing my route over Dennison East and into Snowslide Canyon. As the clouds continued to rise, it began snowing lightly, and I stopped briefly to put on another jacket as the temperature dropped. For the first half of the descent, I remained in or just left of Snowslide Canyon instead of using the ridge I had ascended. This was more or less straightforward until around 6,800 ft where the canyon cliffed out in a series of icy waterfalls. I continued descending on the left side, aiming for some trees. This was somewhat tedious travel with moderate bushwhacking and scrambling across snow-covered rocks. Eventually the snow ended and I put the snowshoes away, bushwhacking back to the South Fork Trail. About 1.5 hours of walking brought me back to the trailhead around 5:30pm.
looking back down Snowslide Canyon
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