Cloudripper — Aug. 23, 2026
Fresh off my summit of Mt. Ritter, I was looking to take a short break from backpacking but reluctant to miss out on another weekend of great weather, not when late summer is liable to bring wildfires and smoke at a moment’s notice. I settled for a sunrise summit of Cloudripper in the Inconsolable Range as a compromise. This was only my second attempt at a sunrise summit in the Sierra as a dayhike (the first was Buck Mountain) and somehow, I missed sunrise proper by a half hour or so yet again!
Cloudripper is about 7 miles from the South Lake trailhead on the easiest route. I set off from the trailhead around 2 AM thinking that would be more than sufficient time to cover the roughly 3700 ft of elevation gain. My waypoints were as follows:
Green Lake, 3:30 AM
Pass above Green Lake, 4:15 AM
Saddle above Thunder and Lightning Lake, 5:15 AM
Vagabond Peak, 6:15 AM (sunrise, plus photo break at Vagabond-Cloudripper saddle)
Cloudripper, 7:15 AM
The terrain itself was very straightforward, but I underestimated how the altitude would affect me, especially running on less than three hours of sleep at the trailhead that night. This was an easy hike, though, and I would definitely attempt it again with maybe an hour of extra padding to make it to the proper summit for sunrise.
The Palisades from Cloudripper.
I cooked my breakfast in a little flat spot north of the true summit and got to work snapping some photos in the early morning light. Even though I’d missed sunrise proper, I wasn’t too upset given I’d witnessed sunrise over the Palisades from multiple vantage points already this summer. The early morning light was particularly good from Cloudripper and I found myself shooting until after 9 AM. After, I debated heading over to the true summit, which looked to be an easy class 3 traverse from my photo spot, but decided it probably wasn’t worth the effort; the vantage point didn’t seem to offer a better view and in fact would have likely forced me to shoot directly into the sun for some shots.
On my way down, I ran into a large group of six heading up Vagabond and then a group of three dayhikers back on the trail. Otherwise, the descent wasn’t too eventful and I was back at my car by 2 PM.
—Justin
