We took a 5 days 4 nights trip out to Kings Canyon to get away from the crowd of Southern California. After a 4 hours drive, we arrived at the Lone Pine and stayed an overnight at the Whitney Portal Hostel and Hotel to get ready for the trip next day.

Day 1:
We woke up early and grabbed some breakfast at McDonald across the street from the hostel we stayed the night before, then headed to the trailhead. The sky is blue and clear. Not a single cloud on the sky. We started off at 8AM at the trailhead, but did not get to the Kearsarge Pass till noon due to struggle of breathing since we come up from basically sea level to 9200ft. There is no snow left on any parts of the trail. Last water source prior to the pass is Gilbert Lake, which about 2.3 miles away from the pass. Make sure you have enough water because we definitely dehydrated ourselves, which making the climb to be more difficult. We took a break for a bit and slowly dragging ourselves to Kearsarge Lake and spend an over night there. The night was somewhere in a mid 20s to low 30s. Breezing cold at night.

Day 2:
We took off from Kearsarge Lake and head out over Glen Pass. No snow is showing at the south section of Glen Pass, but north of the pass, there are few spots that still have patches of snow that you can cross carefully without the need of microspike. I was surprised Glen pass is mostly melted by this time of year. We then proceeded to go down to Rae Lake and settled for a campsite at Middle Rae Lake for the night. The night is clear, the stars started to show up. I took couple of milky way shots of the lake and it’s pretty awesome!

Day 3:

We headed off for a day hike at Dragon Lake. The trail is hard to find. Offline map is highly recommended as we got off trail couple of time. The ending view of the lake is very cool! There is a frozen patch of snow on the mountain, which really look like Yosemite Falls. We then head back to the campsite to start pack up the tent to move to Upper Rae Lake for an overnight. We arrived early, so we decided to hike the Sixty Lakes Basin. We got ambushed by the mosquitos. Like no joke, you can’t even stop walking. They bit even when you are walking as fast as you can. The ending view of the Sixty Lake Basin is a bit disappointed, but still, the view on the way there is very nice

Day 4:
We went over Glen Pass again to stay at Charlotte Lake. Nice view and campsite to rest before the final days to head back to Onion Valley. Flowers are blooming everywhere along the lake. Mosquitos were not presented at the lake, but a ton at the campsite for some reason.

Day 5:

We headed out early from Charlotte Lake around 7:30AM and got to Kearsarge Pass by 11:00AM. We planned to stay another night at Gilbert Lake, but we got there by noon and figure out it’s too early for camp. Too hot inside the tent, and too much mosquitos to deal with if we hang out outside. So then we decided to head out to the car and grab ourselves a burger and a pizza on the way back to SoCal.

 

I hope yall enjoy couple of mobile pics that I took on this trip.