SEKI lollipop from the west side: 7/23-7/30
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SEKI Trip Report: 7/23-7/30
I recently did a solo hike in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks, thankfully missing the smoke up near Yosemite and having only a few rain drops on the last day.
The plan (loosely) was to hike 85 miles in seven days. Sounded reasonable, so I casually didn’t bother looking at the map ahead of time to see where I would likely camp each night. Also (as is my usual), I didn’t do any hiking or much other exercise to prep.
The upshot was it took me an extra day to complete my lollypop loop.
Normally I reserve a permit ahead of time, but for this hike I was late in my planning (there’s a theme there somewhere), so I drove down to the Lodgepole visitors’ center east and south of Fresno Monday morning, hoping to get a walk-up permit for the next day. Surprise! I got one for that very day.
I started hiking at 1:30 pm and felt good about getting eleven miles by 8:00 pm, camping at the large Bearpaw campsite. Good start.
Going from about zero to 8,000 feet led to poor sleep the first night, but I got up raring to go. So, I turned off the High Sierra Route towards Elizabeth Pass, working my way uphill. The timing wasn’t great when I got to a mile, mile and a half from the pass as a darkish cloud rolled in accompanied by a bit of thunder.
Thusly I took a rest and watched the clouds to see if they’d lighten up, and felt pooped. The result being I didn’t hike past 1:30 pm and set up my Wild Oasis on a rather slanty bit of small granite gravel.
The fun part was a doe I saw in the bushes right next to my shelter just before I retired for the night. She was unafraid of me, and wouldn’t shoo when I threw a small rock at her. All night long I could hear the sounds of her (and others?) munching on the minty bushes on two side of me. At one point my water bottle got knocked over and a guy line was bumped. Crazy night.
On day three I hauled myself up the steep approach to Elizabeth Pass (and, yes, the last mile had a sketchy track, so I lost the trail briefly a couple times). I celebrated at the sign at the top announcing I was now entering Kings Canyon NP (from Sequoia NP).
Down the many crushed rock switchbacks (all hail the trail builders), pass several high little streams, down into Deadman’s Canyon. Wonder why it’s called that? Nobody died while I went through (as far as I know), but it was a somewhat less attractive area by SEKI standards.
Across a slippery log at creek level, and got to the junction at Roaring River Ranger Station. Which had a building and a bit bulletin board and campsites. And a wooden bridge.
Hard right turn and I was headed up Cloud Canyon for a couple more miles before stopping for the night.
On day four Cloud Canyon proved to be very attractive, as I crossed streams wetly and dryly, working my way up to Colby Lake. After chatting with two women going the other way (and doing the same loop) they kindly agreed to call my brother when they got out to alert him that I’d be a day late exiting the wilds.
I got there in mid-afternoon, but knew I couldn’t get over the pass in time with the not-so-much energy I had left. The view from camp was beautiful that night, across the lake and up the far side’s high ridge.
The couple camped nearby had four bear cans between them. Odd to me, but maybe they’d been there for a week. They warned me that Colby Pass had been blocked by an avalanche.
This I had been forewarned about and I knew the two who’d be delivering my message had just come over this pass.
So, on day five, I headed up into the rocky switchbacks and picked my way very patiently and carefully over and around the half dozen spots of trail blockage the avalanche had created. Totally doable, you just have to check for unstable rocks and not do anything stupid.
Another celebration at the sign at the top. I remember this one saying it was 12,000 feet. And back into Sequoia NP.
If you know the area you can probably see where this is headed, route-wise (back to the HST). Down from Colby Pass on the north side into a lovely, wide high alpine meadow with little streams, greenery on the ground, and a few flowers. I really ought to plan a trip to have an hour or two to linger in one of these high meadows. So pretty.
Eventually trees popped up, became full-fledged woods, bearing to the left (east) and down, down, down. The latter part of the Colby Pass Trail got bushwhack-y and even aspen-y. I had to shove my way through. Then across the toughest (and multi-threaded) creek crossing (rather swift) and just a bit farther to…Junction Meadow and back on the HST!
I took a break sitting on a bear box in the big empty campsite next to the Kern River. I then took off at a happy, brisk pace as the HST slanted slightly downhill along the river with flat, soft, wide tread. It was a highway compared to what I’d pushed through to get there.
After twelve and a quarter hours of hiking (long for me) I made camp at what turned out for be a quarter mile shy of Kern Hot Springs. I wasn’t really interested in sitting in a hot springs (needed to keep making miles) and it was crowded with HSTers when I passed it the next morning. And I didn’t want to end my day with a wet creek crossing.
I slept out under the stars (as I did half the nights depending on my mood). Ate homemade microwave jerky for dinner (since I needed an extra dinner). Note: On last night of the trip I noticed it was perhaps going bad. Experiment was a failure.
The next day, day six, I finished the last bit by the Kern River, crossed it on a wood bridge,
hit the trail junction, and started a day long uphill stretch. Winding through spaced out pines (no drugs involved), up switchbacks, up and over a rounded top. Camped at Big Arroyo Creek Junction (just past where the trail had fallen away and hikers had to scramble up into the bushes or carefully pick their way across the exposed boulders. Trail crews had been working to make it more passable, I’d been told by hikers.)
That day I passed two women I’d first met in Deadman’s Canyon going the other direction. I had commented on their ULA packs (like mine) and their cool Dirty Girls gaiters. This time they tole me they were doing the Big SEKI Loop. But were now thinking they might bail at their Kearsarge Pass resupply exit. They thought the creator (Amy L.) must be an optimistic/strong hiker to say it could be done in the time described!
Day seven started with a very pretty (and pretty easy) hike up to Kaweah Gap.
I took a nice long break at the top, noticed a red tent down at a lake just into what I was told later was the Nine Lakes area, and then headed down past dramatic little Precipice Lake and onto the long-seeming descent to Hamilton Lake.
Where I sat in the shade of a little pine tree and ate lunch. Someone had tied an inflatable raft to said tree and left it there. Odd. I took a picture which I showed the ranger when I got back to civilization.
Up and down and up and down…
to… Bearpaw camp. Back to where I once belonged. Chatted with a young couple visiting from England (who’d come to SEKI after being thwarted by smoke near Yosemite). Ended up camping near them, a trio on a HST hike, and a solo fellow who said he’d been planning to do a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail till his fiancé said if he left for five months, she wouldn’t be there when he got back!
Bonus day, day eight, and I hiked out the rest of the HST to Crescent Meadow, day hikers, and my car.
A splendid time was had by all!
P.S. On the last day I first met two young studs on schedule to do the whole 75 miles HST in two and a half days. Yikes! Then, a few minutes later, I commented on the Zpacks worn by a couple in their seventies. Turns out they’ve thru-hiked the PCT. Twice. And two years ago did the CDT. I asked about their training regime, noted it down, and will probably never match it. People are amazing.
Thanks for sharing!
That part of SEKI is one that I still haven’t visited (I started a trip once out of Roads End, over Avalanche Pass, to visit Cloud and Deadman Canyons, but bailed after the first night–long story, but it’s what Andrew Fahrland referred to as the “solo-backpacker existential crisis,” which is real, and afflicts many solo backpackers–glad to see not you, on this trip!)
You joked about nobody dying in Deadman Canyon while you were there, but in case you didn’t know, it is named after a sheepherder that died in the canyon (in 1875 or 1887–there’s some disagreement). There’s more on wikipedia, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadman_Canyon .
The grave is marked on the USGS quad:
I always thought it was odd that graves were marked on USGS quads. A little morbid. They are not particularly important to the geography, after all, aside from pinpointing a marker in some cases.
Speaking of markers, did you see the grave marker? It’s supposed to be fairly prominent.
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