In 2006 and 2007, I led small groups of hardy Southern Arizona Hiking Club backpackers on week-long trips to California's Sierra Nevada. Here's your chance to view this spectacular mountain range for yourself. This aggressive loop backpack trip from the Lodgepole Visitor Center delves through the backcountry of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, building by slow degrees to a grand climax of a High Sierra crossing at Elizabeth Pass, and winding down again with another gradual passage down the north wall of the Kaweah River canyon. Glacier-carved cliffs and mountains, deep canyons, wildlife, and giant sequoias - this hike has it all! I think this trip is going to be the best yet! Join me for this amazing trip to one of the crown jewels of the American wilderness system. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DATES OF THIS TRIP HAVE CHANGED!
The Sierra Nevada is a superlative range. Almost 400 miles long from Tehachapi Pass to where it fades into the Cascade Range just north of the Feather River, and from 50 to 80 miles wide, it is the longest single mountain range (as opposed to a mountain system) in the continental United States. Within that purview you will find the largest trees, the most temperate summer climate, the greatest snow depths, the mightiest escarpment, (arguably) the deepest canyon, and the highest waterfalls in the United States. Its rivers water the richest agricultural region, and its placers and quartz veins produced and still hoard the richest gold deposits. The highest U.S. mountain outside of Alaska is Mount Whitney, a Sierra summit. The oldest large-scale public park to be established by the federal government - the nation's first national park, if you will - were the combined parcels of Yosemite Valley and the Wawona Grove of giant sequoias, signed over to the state of California by Abraham Lincoln in 1864, eight years before Congress created Yellowstone National Park.
What sets the Sierra Nevada apart from other landscapes, however, owes more to the testimony of the senses than to factual assessments. For anyone even moderately receptive to the beauty of mountain landscapes, the Sierra Nevada offers a lifetime of enthralling study, pleasure, and recreation. No matter where you go, there is always something extraordinary. The scent of pungent mountain misery is every bit as heady as the aroma of deep pine forests or sagebrush basins. The dazzling wildflower pastures of Butte County in spring, or of Carson Pass in summer, give way to the dazzling autumnal leaf displays of the eastern canyons of Mono, Alpine, and Inyo Counties. The widest, most sublime of Sierra vistas evokes a sense of wonder no less engaging than the most exquisite details that lie immediately under our noses: a trailside rock garden, that delicious scent of sun-warmed Jeffrey pine, bumblebees sheltering from rain under the umbels of a blooming flower stalk, the fat marmot who lives atop Mount Whitney. The Sierra Nevada is much, much more than a sum of its peaks. When you stand before the majesty of a soaring alpine summit, spare some thought for the broad belts of desert, forest, and foothill that cushion your solitude; the lower canyons that carry the streams and their sediments away from the highlands; the boreal larders of food and shelter for wildlife. The western foothills and forests are a prelude to the High Sierra, the east-side deserts its grand finale. By extension, the degradation of the foothills also degrades the High Sierra, for the failing health of one zone infringes upon the next and weakens the whole. John Muir extolled this extraordinary richness of the Sierra Nevada in his writings. He recognized the rare magic of these mountains at his first glimpse, as he crossed the Coast Ranges en route from San Francisco to Yosemite, and the Sierra never disappointed him:
The mountains have a way of kneading and slapping life back into an existence wearied and dulled by too much city living. Who needs a personal trainer when you can hike a Sierra peak? Who needs a stiff belt down at Joe's when the stinging shock of a cold wind off a high snowbank, or even a damp grass stain on the seat of your britches, bellows out that you are a vibrant part of the planet? Hiking the Sierra Nevada is not always a romp through posy fields. The mountains can parch you, exhaust you, freeze you, drench you, wear holes in the knees of your trousers, or break your bones with complete indifference, though never with malice. A week on its trails has a wondrous way of shifting priorities back into their proper places, of reminding us of the preeminent excellence of simple things - dry clothes, rest, food, water, camaraderie, a campfire. Our ancient ancestors ranked such basic commodities highest among life's happiest and most precious attainments. Bring along a good book or a guitar, and we can add to that state of bliss a touch of high culture, too.
From I-5, take CA Hwy 99 north through Bakersfield, Delano and Tulare to CA Hwy 198. Turn east toward Visalia and drive approximately 40 miles, going through Three Rivers and on to the Ash Mountain entrance to Sequoia National Park. Continue and follow the Generals Highway to Lodgepole, which is a little more than 20 winding miles north of the Ash Mountain entrance. Take the road (not identified with a name or number) east into Lodgepole, past the visitor center, to Lodgepole Campground. From the Lodgepole Visitor Center in Sequoia National Park, drive one-third of a mile eastward, past the kiosk of Lodgepole Campground, and park next to the small nature center on the right (S) side of the road. Then walk up the road 0.1 mile to the automobile bridge across the Marble Fork of the Kaweah. Cross it and pass the signed trail to Tokopah Falls. Immediately beyond, the Twin Lakes Trail - our trailhead - begins on our right (E).
The Lodgepole Campground has 214 sites, is located one-half mile east of Lodgepole Visitor Center, has an elevation of 6,700 feet and costs $18.00 per night in the summer. Amenities include flush toilets, bearproof storage boxes, a pay phone, a laundromat, a camper store, a deli and a gift center. Showers, sanitary disposal station and horses at Wolverton are available mid-May through September. Lodgepole accepts reservations up to five months in advance of your stay. Lodgepole sites can be reserved for Memorial Day weekend through early October. Please call (800) 365-2267 or visit Recreation.gov for more information. We are not staying at this campground. I plan on hiking in three miles to Cahoon Meadow for our first night. You need a wilderness permit to take backcountry overnight trips. Permits are available on a quota system at the Lodgepole Visitor Center year-round. You can reserve a permit in advance for trips between mid-May and September. The park accepts backcountry reservations for the current year no earlier than March 1 and no later than 3 weeks before the start of your trip. All reservation requests must be faxed or mailed in. Bear canisters are required in this region. We are going to be a long way from any possibility of acquiring additional food, so your food must be safe. Food storage boxes are available along the trail, but we can't count on being able to get to them or use them. Remember that you are required by law to keep your food out of the reach of bears. If a bear eats your food, it's your fault.
From the Twin Lakes trailhead at Lodgepole (6,750'), After a mile of steady climbing, we turn right (N) onto a flat stretch thickly clotted with lodgepole pine and red fir. A mile of easy rambling on forest duff brings us to a ford of Silliman Creek, where a sign admonishes us to stay out of the water, because it is part of the park's water supply. Continuing uphill, we pass the flowery glade of Cahoon Meadow Our trail now descends about 250 feet of elevation in 0.8 mile to the banks of Clover Creek. We turn right at the junction with the JO Pass Trail, ford the stream, and commence a series of uphill switchbacks about 2 miles to the 9,500-foot shelf where Twin Lakes recline in the woods below Silliman Pass. There are popular campsites at both lakes. The final climb starts without preamble on the eastern end of the lakes, zigzagging up through thick forest. Trees are even growing on the 10,200-foot brow of the Kings-Kaweah Divide at Silliman Pass,
Crossing into Kings Canyon National Park at Silliman Pass, our trail winds down in full view of Mount Silliman (11,188') to the south, as well as some dainty examples of natural flower gardens and miniature waterfalls. Reaching a wooded shelf, we pass the short entry paths to Beville Lake - popular with mosquitos - and then larger Ranger Lake. Leaving the lakes, our trail descends gradually northward, passing under Ball Dome and leveling out at the ford of Seville Lake's outlet stream in Belle Canyon. Turning right (NE) at the junction, we follow the creek down to another junction at Comanche Meadow, where we turn right (E) again. Fording the creek that drains Williams Meadow, we hike down into Sugarloaf Valley. As the forest pulls back from dry meadows, the famous Sugarloaf soon pulls into view, a granite dome rising tusklike 1,000 feet above the valley floor. On the southwest corner of the Sugarloaf, in woods on the edge of Sugarloaf Meadow, a small spur path on the left side of our trail leads to a comfortable packer camp, with creek, fire ring, bear box, and log seats.
The heavily forested 3-mile passage across Sugarloaf Valley would be easy hiking, were it not for the fords of Sugarloaf and Ferguson creeks, which are treacherous in early season. Apart from that, the trail is fairly level and soft on the feet. After Ferguson Creek, we climb out of the valley over a dry moraine pushed up by ice age glaciers moving down Deadman and Cloud canyons, whose combined drainages today form the Roaring River on the eastern side of the moraine. This is a swift, dangerous river at any time of the year, but fortunately we do not have to ford it. Our path traces its rushing waters upstream to Scaffold Meadow, a strategic crossroads of Sierra byways. At this junction stands the Roaring River Ranger Station, As we begin the first temperate mile of Deadman Canyon, we begin to see signs that the hitherto prevalent forest cover is beginning to quaver. Independent Jeffrey pines and clumps of sagebrush - the harbingers of drier, rockier terrain - are growing more numerous. The canyon is narrowing, hemmed in on the left (E) by Glacier Ridge and on the right (W) by ridge spurs from the Tablelands. After fording Deadman Canyon's creek (known as Copper Creek, for the mine at the head of Deadman Canyon), we hike through meadows on the eastern bank before arriving at the canyon's namesake, the grave of an Iberian sheepherder, Alfred Moniere. After leaving the grave to its lonely vigil, we again cross Copper Creek and pass a drift fence, an indication that this trail is popular among packers. As we climb higher the canyon appears to deepen, especially as we enter Lower Ranger Meadow about a mile above the ford, where the ridges have risen into respectable mountains. Hikers often meet herds of grazing horses. The boulders and woods along the east side of Lower and Middle Ranger Meadows shelter some old packer camps.
Passing through another stock gate, we make another ford of Copper Creek and climb a granite shelf to Upper Ranger Meadow, with an excellent packer camp in the trees overlooking Middle Ranger Meadow. Now begins the hardest climb of this trip. To recall the phraseology of a ranger once met at Lodgepole, Elizabeth Pass is "a real grunt"; that is, a climb of heroic proportions. Our trail takes off through fields of talus above the rushing creek, climbing to the top of a granite bluff and crossing the cascades to the opposite bank, a tricky ford when the water is high. The trail from here to the little meadow below the granite cirque is beautifully engineered with rock steps. As we turn uphill onto steep granite slabs above the meadow, however, the trail is sometimes hard to follow. The problem is snow, which sticks in patches to this northeast-facing slope often throughout the year. Keep in mind that you are aiming for the pass on the southwest ridge and climb for that. Chances are good that you will at some point regain the trail, which climbs in broad switchbacks to the 11,400-foot pass, a narrow saddle in the Kings-Kaweah Divide. There is a register box atop Elizabeth Pass. The 3,350-foot descent from Elizabeth Pass to Lone Pine Creek is tough on knees. We start down through the talus on a set of tight, ambitiously engineered switchbacks, feeding thence into long, sloping granite slabs interspersed with meadow and boulders. Cairns mark our route, which is not always easy to follow, but even when we lose it we can often pick it up in the wide-open country by searching down the slope. Our trail descends to a lateral valley, crossing the outlet creek from Lonely Lake, whereupon we begin a series of merciless switchbacks through dry scrub down to the rocky floor of Lone Pine Creek's canyon, at about 8,050 feet. There we meet the trail to Tamarack Lake, which leads to some close campsites sheltered in the trees.
Just ahead on our trail lies another junction, with the Over-the-Hill Trail to Bearpaw Meadow. We start by climbing through a subalpine world scoured by avalanches. Enjoy the fantastic views eastward to the Angel Wings and other polished granite domes and spires, because once we hit the crest the forest closes in, and we make a steep descent, blinkered in forests of red fir. Arriving at Bearpaw High Sierra Camp, we find a ranger station and a canvas tent lodge that provides beds, showers and meals to paying guests (who reserve the privilege months in advance). The Bearpaw Meadow Campground At Bearpaw Meadow, we pick up the famous High Sierra Trail back toward Giant Forest, a stretch of trail that is engineered to keep the rise and fall to a minimum, while enjoying scenic views of Sugarbowl Dome, Little Blue Dome, Castle Rocks, and the Kaweah River gorge. There are campsites with bear boxes at Buck Creek, Nine Mile Creek, and Mehrten Creek. Three-and-a-half miles west of our Mehrten Creek campsite, the trail makes a large sweeping turn to the southwest. As it does, the Wolverton Cutoff Trail After an appropriate time during which we pay homage to the trees that guard this forest, continue north on the Wolverton Cutoff Trail. The trail winds its way past the Wolverton Corrals,
The photos were "borrowed" from the Internet. The hike profile and the map were created by Steve Singkofer. Most of the information on this page is directly excerpted from the second edition of Hiking the Sierra Nevada by Barry Parr.
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