As an instructor for Stanford’s Outdoor Education Program, I led an introductory mountaineering trip to 11,204 foot Alta Peak in Sequoia National Park during May of 2008. We left the Bay Area at around 7:30 PM on Friday evening, and drove all the way to the park that night. We camped at Lodgepole, a front country campsite with a visitor center, market, flush toilets, and showers.
In late October of 2008, I led an attempt to climb Sequoia National Park’s 11,188-foot Mount Silliman as part of the Outdoor Education Program. We left Stanford on Friday evening and arrived at Lodgepole campsite a little after midnight. Mount Silliman is in the same area as a peak I climbed last spring, Alta Peak; it lies a few miles to the northwest. We went to sleep almost as soon as we arrived.