Arnot Peak

The Hike: Quickly cross over the North Fork Mokelumne River and continue to the northeast and then descend to the east. Several springs are crossed that are loaded with stream bluebells. Lots of other flowers such as paintbrush, mule ear, pretty face, and lomatium among many others also line the trail. Where the trail turns to the southeast to climb is a nice view of Tryon Peak to the north. There are remnants of old roads all around in this area but it is easy to stay on the main trail. At ~0.6 miles the trail reaches the top of a rise and border of the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness. Shortly after this, and slightly downhill, the loop junction is reached. The left trail leads to Lower Gardner Meadow and the right one leads to Upper Gardner Meadow. We stayed right and descended toward Upper Gardner Meadow. This trail reaches a smaller meadow at a low point before slightly climbing to the south to reach the northern end of Upper Gardner Meadow (~0.9 miles). This is a pretty decently-sized meadow with great views of Arnot Peak to the southeast. Lots of different types of flowers can be found in the meadow, but when we passed through the bright orange paintbrush and shooting stars were putting on a particularly impressive show. The trail skirts the western edge of the meadow, passes over a few springs entering the meadow before reaching a junction with the Arnot Creek Trail at the southern end of the meadow (~1.55 miles). Stay straight/left (east) to continue on the Disaster Creek Trail.

After leaving the meadow the trail climbs a little before turning to the south and descends. From here the route gets lost a few times. The trail continues south into another small meadow and wetland before turning east toward the outlet from Half Moon Lake. The trail here is not very clear. The USGS topo indicates that the trail crosses the creek and then turns south again, but we paralleled the creek on the west side before crossing the creek near the southeastern end of the small meadow (sort of looks like an 'M' from above) and found the trail (~2.1 miles). The trail then parallels the creek from the east side for a little while before climbing slightly. At ~2.4 miles we left the trail to the east just after crossing a dry creek bed. From here we headed steeply uphill and followed the north side of a spring coming down the western slopes of Arnot Peak. There are lots of bushes on the western slopes and we tried to pick our way between them. Surprisingly, there were a lot of flowers blooming on the western slopes including bright orange paintbrush, sulphur flower, and monument plant. We read an account of getting up to Arnot Peak by heading further south on the Disaster Creek Trail and following another one of these springs up. We followed the next spring north of the one in that account before crossing our spring where two tributary springs join (~2.8 miles) and climbed the ridge between the two main springs (not between the two tributary springs). There were lots of Monkeyflowers here.

We then followed this ridge steeply uphill to the east and northeast to reach the wide saddle (~3.4 miles) northwest of the summit of Arnot Peak. Before reaching the saddle, we stayed just to the south of a particularly steep and rocky section at the head of the southern tributary spring. Some sections below the saddle were thick with bushes, but that is why we wear pants instead of shorts while hiking off-trail. At the saddle is a nice view looking at Highland Peak and down Wolf Creek Canyon to the northeast. From the saddle head southeast up the slope. There is a shoulder summit west of Arnot Peak where we turned to the east, passed by a little stand of tough trees, and started the final climb to the summit. Immediately southwest of the summit is a false summit. We walked between the true and false summits before turning to climb the volcanic rocks of the true summit (~3.8 miles). You know you are at the true summit if you see a plaque and a register nearby in a metal ammunition box. For some reason there are a lot of a peculiar type of fly at the summit, but don't worry they don't bite. We only had one land on us for a split second the entire time we were on the summit eating and taking in the views. Be careful not to trample the California Sky Pilot that grows in the rocks at the summit. Stanislaus Peak and Leavitt Peak loom large to the south-southwest, Highland Peak to the north, and Iceberg Peak, Airola Peak, and Hiram Peak to the west. There are numerous other peaks visible too including Wheeler Peak, Whitecliff Peak, Dardanelles Cone, Mokelumne Peak, Deadwood Peak, Pyramid Peak, Reynolds Peak, Freel Peak, Jobs Sister, and Jobs Peak to name a few. It was fun reading through the summit register of entries since the 1960's. We were the first to summit the peak in over a month and a half and one of only a few groups to do it in 2014 thus far. The first entry is from the Arnot family on July 12-13, 1963.

Once we decided to leave the summit, we retraced our steps back down to the saddle before continuing to the northwest before dropping off the east side and skirting around some lingering snow (~4.3 miles). We headed steeply downhill to the northeast before turning north to stay above the spring on the northside of Arnot Peak, a tributary to Wolf Creek. For a little while there appeared to be a light use-trail but it soon disappeared and we walked through the trees before breaking out into a bush-filled slope. Again, there appeared to be a trail just before this, but it disappeared in the brush. We continued downhill through the brush to the northeast and came upon the western end of a small meadow (~5.0 miles) above the headwaters of Wolf Creek. If you stay too much uphill of this point (to the west or southwest) you'll run into a steep crack that sees its snow stay much longer than almost anywhere else nearby. Near this meadow we turned north again through the trees and walked in a general north-northwest direction before we reached the top of a rise and then descended to meet an old road/trail at ~5.4 miles. The old road is very faint in places. We could have headed in a more north-northeast direction and connected with the PCT, but where's the fun in that? At ~5.5 miles we crossed another spring/wetland and found a faint trail (shows up in the USGS topo) and followed its general direction to the northwest. Again, there were a few places where the faint trail disappeared but we knew it stayed relatively close to the spring on the west side. We walked through another larger meadow (~5.9 miles) to the northwest and saw the remains of the old road sink into the wetland on the western side.

We picked up the faint trail again and headed northwest into the trees. The route then turns to the northeast and descends into another meadow before turning to the northwest to the join the main trail near the spring again (~6.3 miles). The main trail heads west, paralleling the south side of the spring before entering Lower Gardner Meadow (~6.5 miles) with a view of Folger Peak. There were a decent number of flowers blooming here too, but not as many as we saw in Upper Gardner Meadow. Near the west end of the meadow a large set of wooden planks allows dry passage over a tributary spring (~6.6 miles). The meadow is then left for the trees to the southwest and the spring coming down from Upper Gardner Meadow is crossed at ~7.15 miles. The trail then climbs to the northwest (please stay on the main trail and not the cut-through trails) to close the loop (~7.4 miles). From here we retraced our steps from earlier in the day and reached the trailhead at ~8.0 miles.