Trailhead: Lodgepole
Elevation: 11188 ft
Route: South Slope
Difficulty: Class 2
Mount Silliman is one of the few easy peaks to access in SEKI. Most of the route in on-trail or mellow off-trail granite slabs and sand. The views from the summit into deep Kings Canyon are superb and the summit plateau is home to a grove of one of the oldest tree species in California the foxtail pine.
My first big days in the Sierra were in Sequoia National Park. In college I convinced a group of boys to take me along on their thanksgiving backpacking trip over Black Rock Pass and into the Little 5 Lakes region of Sequoia. It was my first big backpacking trip, if you discount the time my dad and I accidentally set our camp in a swamp on an overnight when I was 11 in the Sangre de Christo mountains, or the time I spent nights out working on a trail crew on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. I was so determined to keep up and pull my weight and I had no idea what I was doing. It was early winter in the Sierra and I didn't own a puffy jacket so I froze most nights in my light fleece. The boys were kind and took pity on me, letting me sleep in the middle of the 4 person tent, the warmest part. On our way over Black Rock pass I dropped my water bottle and it ricocheted hundreds of feet down the steep slope. I hadn't learned that when you're on steep terrain everything has to be clipped in or secured in some way. But there were great moments too. I remember coming over the pass and seeing hundreds of miles of mountains covered in smooth powdery snow. I remember hiking out on the last day and asking the de facto leader what he was looking forward to in civilization and he said nothing, that he was sad the trip was over and would rather stay out here. I realized that we hadn't seen a single other person the entire week long trip.
It is almost unheard of to go a week in the California mountains without seeing another person. In Yosemite, even in the backcountry, we routinely see other climbers, and sometimes crowds of other climbers, even miles and miles from the road. But I remembered how we had seen no one in Sequoia when I was a teenager, and I've always wanted to return.
A couple of months ago I moved to Fresno and SEKI (Sequoia + Kings Canyon) became my local park. I find this delightful and a little bit frightening to be honest. SEKI seems like Wilderness with a capital "W" and I even though I'm a decade older and wiser than I was my first visit to the park I still feel like I don't match up to the challenge.
I picked Silliman as a first peak because it seemed easy, and I'd already done the other easy peak, Alta, on a ski trip. Silliman starts on a trail out of Lodgepole, heading towards Twin lakes. When I hit Silliman creek, I turned up the watercourse. There was a use trail there on the south side of the creek, fortunately well travelled and well cairned, leading up through what otherwise would be a challenging bushwhack.
Tarn just below the south slopes of Silliman with mountain chicken for scale
After this I emerged into a granite amphitheater, with a series of hanging valleys stacked on top of each other. I remembered this from my SEKI backpacking trip, how each valley held terraces of pristine alpine lakes cut out of black-streaked granite. Folks drool over precipice lake on the High Sierra Trail, but there are hundreds of Precipice Lakes in SEKI hiding just off the path.
Black streaked granite
At the head of the valley a stand of Foxtail pines adorned the ridge and marked the summit of Silliman. These rare trees are old, almost as old as the Ancient Bristlecones in the White Mountains.
Old grove of foxtail pines near the summit
Silliman gets its name from the Yale chemistry professor who taught one of the first ascensionists, William Brewer. Silliman was like all humans somewhat complicated. On the one hand he advocated for allowing women into Yale when women were generally barred from higher education. On the other hand, he was hired by the President of Yale as chemistry faculty despite never having studied chemistry, and was somewhat of an ardent creationist, so who knows what really the women in his chemistry lectures gained from hearing him speak, scientifically speaking.
What is true though is that he never climbed Mount Silliman, and there's no evidence that he loved the Sierras, though he advocate for the drilling of petroleum in Ojai Basin California, thus somewhat indirectly leading to all the damage done to the Sierra through fossil fuel burning. Of course, in the 1860s human caused climate change wasn't as established as it is today, but he still falls more into the column of extractionist rather than conservationist.
Point being, though I'm sure he had good values and worked hard, he doesn't deserve a mountain in the Sierras, certainly not one as gorgeous as the one that bears his name. The foxtails, however, have lived centuries if not millennia, and have survived in one of earth's harshest environments. Why not Foxtail peak? It is certainly not impossible to rename peaks in the Sierra.
View deep into the park from the summit
From the summit I could see all the other mountains in SEKI I have yet to visit, and wow is it a big task. But they're all gorgeous and well worth it so I feel lucky to be living here so close by to this immense place. Too bad all the easy mountains are done...
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