Thunder Mountain and some other peaks and ridges northeast of Silver Lake

When I drove to Carson Pass for this adventure, I knew I would be back soon again. Not only because I liked my snowshoe hike a lot then, but also because I saw many other potential and interesting goals in this area. The view of Thunder Mountain and in fact the whole ridge northeast of Silver Lake made such a good impression to me that I could not resist to come back again already, in particular because I noticed that I could get my "urgently needed dose of  scrambling" there. Since there was no considerable precipitation in this area since my last visit I decided to leave my snowshoes at home. For my tour today I planned to visit quite a few peaks, for some of them I did my homework for some I didn't.

One thing I find hard to get used to, is that I have to worry about appropriate parking for the car, in particular in the winter time, when all the trail heads and other parking possibilities are closed and gated off for the season. So far I wasn't brave enough to just park the car at the side of the road (yet), it might be a bad idea anyway. Today I'm pretty successful though. 2.1 miles east of the bridge at Silver Lake, there is a little campground, which doesn't close for the season - at least there's no gate or sign and there are plenty of possibilities to leave the car for the day (and even overnight).

From the campground I follow the hiking path towards Castle Point and Carson Spur. In order to get to the top of Castle Point, my first peak today, I have to leave the trail. This is true for all peaks today, except the very last one. After the short visit of the peak (it's very windy today) I get back to the hiking path and keep following it. After crossing Highway 88 there is some snow on the ground but nothing to worry about. In order to get to the top of Carson Spur (it's more a ridge than a peak), I leave the trail again and walk up to the it. The whole ridge is "decorated" with what I assume are avalanche protections. I guess they are set there to prevent a big cornice to build up and then endanger Highway 88 north of Carson Spur. The ridge offers a nice view.

As the name of the next peak to visit would suggests, it's not one but two peaks: Two Sentinels. Since I didn't do my research about these two peaks and didn't think about the name, but looked on the map only (where only one peak is annotated) I don't know this and think the first one is the one (the second one is not visible yet). However, this tower looks extremely difficult to climb. I find a groove on the south side which looks promising and I give it a try. However, about half way up there is a III which I would have to climb. It's not too exposed, but I don't have the guts to get past this point, even though I feel like on a good day I could do it. A little bit disappointed to have missed the "Two Sentinels" peak I keep walking and all of a sudden the taller and wider one of the Two Sentinels appears. At first it doesn't look much easier to climb than the one I had to give up on, but actually turns out to be feasible for me. The climbing difficulty on the right groove on the south side is not quite a III, but only a II+ with good grips in the right places where you need them and I am very happy to make it to the top (see this picture for my route).

After climbing back down I walk towards my next goal Martin Point (or in honor of a famous hiker Omega3 Point ;-). To me it looks like there are 3 peaks which could be the actual top. The one which is furthest Southeast looks like the highest point, and the one furthest Northwest like the lowest. Therefore, I aim to the Southeast peak which I scramble up to on its NW ridge (T4, I). Standing on top it still feels like it is the highest of the 3 peaks. However, on Bob Burds excellent webpage I found a description that there should be a laminated page of the summit register from 1933 in a glass jar somewhere. Since I can't find it anywhere I head over to the middle peak. I look everywhere for a summit register, but can't find anything here either. However, there are some signs (rock piles and wood sticks), which indicate that this could be the "real" summit. Just to make sure I really stood on the actual Martin Point peak, I also climb up to the NW peak (which is a fun little scramble too, T5/II). Even though there is no register here either and this is obviously the lowest of the 3 peaks, I make my extended lunch break in a little niche where I'm protected from the strong winds.

After this long break I then head over to the two Thunder Mountain peaks. In order to do so I walk back SE to the trail and follow it to the southern foot of the highest point of Thunder Mountain (on the map Point 9410). Getting to the top via south flank is straight forward and easy (T3). So is the walk over to the West Peak: back down to the trail which actually takes me all the way to the peak. The visibility today is amazing, in direction SW I can clearly see Mount Diablo which is more than 180km (>110 miles) away. I can also clearly make out Tower Peak in the Yosemite Park in the SE.

After another long break I start heading back to my car. I decide to not follow the Thunder Mountain Loop and get back to my car via the Silver Lake Horse Canyon trail -  it seems like an not very interesting long detour - but take a shortcut instead. After getting back to the saddle between Thunder Mountain (East) and Martin Point, I walk down west to the bottom of the little valley there (it feels and looks like a natural Amphitheatre). I then walk up to the northernmost rocky ridge of Thunder Mountain and from there follow the not very distinct ridge NW downhill. It's all in the forest from this point on. The south side of this ridge is mostly snow free. The flatter the terrain gets the harder is the orientation and the more snow lays on the ground, but I happen to have a good sense of direction and actually get back to Highway 88 pretty much exactly at the campground where my car is parked.