Sourdough Mountain — Sunday, Sep. 4, 2022

Between the cloudy weather, the smoke, and the elevation gain, I was hoping that the trail would be sparsely populated. That was indeed the case as I only saw 2 groups ascending, and a few more descending.

First 2.5 miles are rough on the way up and much worse on the way down. This section, while technically forested, was burned up recently, so there's lots of snags and blowdowns around. None on the trail, thankfully. Forest thickens up when you get into NCNP. Blueberries start right before sourdough camp, and are plentiful until you get close to the ridge. The creek by sourdough camp was dry around lunchtime, and trickling around 5pm. There are tarns on the ridge, thankfully, so you're not totally out of luck. Saw bear scat on the section of the trail that runs below (but parallel) to the ridge. I skipped the fire lookout, opting instead of explore the ridgeline. There's a clearly marked trail that run to the top of the cliffs that is the faux sourdough peak. There are ways to drop down through the forest south of the cliffs, or you can backtrack and find the trail that runs around the cliffs, on the south side. That trail seems to run the length of the ridge, as I was able to take it all the way to the true summit of sourdough.

The Stetattle ridge was super fun to explore and I'm looking forward to coming back up to camp there.