Photo above: On Horseshoe Meadows Road midday Monday, August 21, 2023. This road continues in switchbacks up the slope in the distance to get up to Horseshoe Meadows and the pack station. Photo Alan Schimpff.
By Jeff Bates
Planning for the summer 2023 GLS mule pack trip in the Eastern Sierra began in late 2022. The leaders made arrangements with the mule pack station and reserved a camping site at Cottonwood Lakes for Sunday, August 20 to Friday, August 25, 2023. Participants began signing up in February.
However, Mother Nature had other plans. Several days before the planned beginning of the mule pack, participants began reading warnings about Hurricane Hilary and its projected path of wind and heavy rain. The reports indicated that Lone Pine, California and the nearby Eastern Sierra would likely be receiving record-breaking rains. Based on these reports, GLS was able to convince the pack station to postpone the beginning of the trip by two days.
Some of the participants spent those two days at the Dow Villa Motel in Lone Pine, California, where they witnessed heavy rain. The rainfall in Lone Pine has been estimated by an unofficial source as 5 to 6 inches, with more rain in the mountains.
On the day before the rescheduled start of the mule pack, the leaders attempted to drive up Whitney Portal Road and then Horseshoe Meadow Road, to see if the group would be able to make it to the pack station. Barely out of Lone Pine, they found that Whitney Portal Road was completely closed. Some of the construction workers said that much of the asphalt surface of the road was gone, and that they expected it would be an extended period of time before the road would be open. In addition, Route 395 was closed part of that day. The leaders recognized that there was no alternative but to cancel the mule pack trip.
While all were disappointed about the cancellation of the mule pack, they were glad that they had not driven up to the pack station and then been stuck there with their vehicles when the road back to town was closed.
We are hoping for better luck next year. Plans for the 2024 mule pack will begin in late 2023, and we hope that Mother Nature does not have other plans!
Some reminders of the memorable 2018 mule pack trip at Cottonwood Lakes
