Best New Trips in the World: Hiking California’s Sierra High Route

For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present California. The world’s far corners are now well within reach.

CALIFORNIA: Thru-Hike the Sierra

“What makes the Sierra High Route so unique,” says Ian Elman, owner of Southern Yosemite Mountain Guides, “is that it’s not a trail, it’s a concept.” That concept—invented in the 1970s by a guy named Steve Roper, who wrote The Sierra High Route: Traversing Timberline Country—is to trace the highest points across the Sierra while staying above tree line and away from other hikers. The thing is, it’s exceedingly difficult to execute this concept on your own: Only a handful of people complete it each year. Lucky for you, Andrew Skurka will lead the inaugural Sierra High Route outfitted crossing for Southern Yosemite Mountain Guides in 2010. The trekker extraordinaire (and our 2008 Adventurer of the Year) completed the hike in just eight days last year. Starting in Kings Canyon National Park, you’ll hoof it 195 miles north, passing through the John Muir Wilderness, the Ansel Adams Wilderness, and Yosemite National Park.

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