The route is the brainchild of mountaineer Steve Roper, who sought an alternative to the heavily pounded JMT. With a taste for glacier-polished slab (or what he calls "Sierra sidewalk"), wind-warped whitebark pine, and lonely lake basins encircled by shark-toothed peaks, Roper pioneered a route that hews as closely as possible to the 10,000-foot contour in the narrow zone between timberline and talus summit. A portion of its 195 miles piggybacks on existing trail, but mostly the High Route sends hikers off trail to pick their way up jumbled passes and across high-mountain streams. No paint blazes and few cairns mark the way.

During his hike, which will begin on July 19, 2010 and end on August 15, 2010, the map below will be updated regularly tracking Fr. Martin's progress along the way.