I've spent countless hours bored at work browsing this site, and always enjoy reading through trip reports. It occured to me that I never wrote anything up about my backpacking trip last summer, so here it is, better late then never.
My friend and I did a 4-day loop in Sequoia NP in mid September. I drove up from orange county and my friend drove down from SF - since I was able to arrive earlier I picked up bear canisters before heading back down the road to Buckeye Flat campground. Turns out the canisters were unnecessary becuase everywhere we camped had a bear locker! We camped the night at Buckeye, then in the morning dropped my friend's car off at the Middle Fork Kaweah trailhead and drove my car up to the High Sierra trailhead at Crescent Meadow. Our plan was to hike to Kaweah Gap, and eventually return by way of Redwood Meadow and the Middle Fork Trail. The intermediate steps we left as a game-time decision - either a day trip up Lawson Peak or hike over Black Rock Pass.
The twelve miles from Crescent Meadow to Bearpaw Meadow is a nice way to start a hike. Great scenery and a mix of flat trail and not-steep uphill that helps ease you into the trip. I Thought I saw a bear well below the trail at one point but there were too many trees to get a good look. We rolled into bearpaw in the afternoon and exchanged hellos with the folks at the cabins there. Rain clouds were threatening in the distance, but we decided to hike the 3 or so more miles to Hamilton Lakes in order to cut down on the amount of uphill we would have to do the following day. Probably a half mile later the thunder got going, and we were getting poured on shortly after that. It was also when the trail got steeper here that we could feel the twelve miles we had already hiked. Cold, wet and tired we arrived at Hamilton Lakes - and right as we showed up the rain stopped, we saw three deer right next to the trail and we got a beatiful sunset. There were several other groups at the campsite but we had no problem getting a nice site. Appanently one of those deer had just tried to run off with our neighbor's hiking pole (b/c the grips would be salty?) My buddy took a swim but I was too intent on warming up.
link We awoke the next morning ready to go uphill. I was glad to have pushed for Hamilton the day before because it was nice to hit this part of the trail fresh. The spectacular views helped motivate us up the 2500 vertical feet. Soon the lake was far below us
linkThe best thing about the climb up to Kaweah gap is that you get TWO awesome rewards for getting to the top - Precipice lake AND the gap. Both amazing. Some of the people on this forum have posted pictures of the lake that put mine to shame, but nothing comes close to actually being there. After seeing so many pictures I was blown away in particular by the hugeness of the cliffs above the lake. The whole thing is unbelieveable. I was the one to take a swim this time and it was freezing. And then only a few more vertical feet and we were at the gap!
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link In the top left corner of the second picture you can see what motivated us to get going off the top of the pass. It also made us decide on taking the Black Rock Pass loop and not trying to camp in the nine lakes basin and attempt Lawson peak. The area we were thinking of camping was high, exposed, and about to be in the middle of a thunderstorm. Somehow we managed to stay exactly on pace with the storm so we enjoyed a cloudy but dry hike down to the Big Arroyo campsite. This whole area is absolutely beatiful. I would definitely return to try to climb one of the Kaweahs - those are some impressive mountains. Somehow managed to not take any good pictures here! We considered continuing up to Little Five Lakes but we were not too excited about doing more uphill and the site at Arroyo was so nice that we made camp there. As we were setting up a trail worker passed through with a team of 6 or 8 pack mules - pretty cool, didn't think to take a pic (of course). In the morning we hiked up to Little Five Lakes and then continued up Black Rock Pass. The very end of this pass is pretty steep and we were gassed by the time we hit the top, despite it not being as much of a climb as the one we had done the day before. We ran into a ranger up there and said hi and he checked out permit. Of course it had worked its way to the very bottom of my pack. Here we are looking tired at the top.
As we headed down the other side all I could say is WOW I am glad I didn't have to hike UP from the west. Just an endless slog up switchbacks. Even going down was a pain. We ate lunch halfway just to break up the monotony. We eventually made it to the Kidney Lake campsite but decided to head further down to the next campsite at the intersection of Timber Gap and Cliff creeks. At Kidney we ran into some people on their way up the pass - apparently this is part of the Mineral King loop. Just 3000 vertical feet to go guys! One party said there was a bear chilling right by the trail a half mile ahead, but by the time we got there he/she was no where to be seen. The site we ended up at was fairly small but it was peace to sleep in the forest with the sound of the rushing creek in the background.
We were originally planning on doing the trip in five days but after looking at the map the following morning we decided that if we were feeling up for it we would just try to do the rest in one push. The last place we really wanted to see was Redwood Meadow but as there is no running water there it would not make for a good camping spot. It didn't take long before we were seeing giant sequoias looming up along the trail. These are some of the coolest organisms on the planet and we had the whole forest to ourseleves. What an experience.
After a couple miles and a crossing of the middle fork of the Kaweah River, we arrived at the junction for the middle fork trail. Our map said it was 9.4 miles to the trailhead. The sign said 13 miles. If I had to guess I would say the sign had it right. This part of the trip was absolutely miserable and we definitely failed to consider how unpleasant hiking 13 miles at such a low altitude would be in September. The total elevation loss in the section is 2600 feet but there is so much up and down that there is a lot more than that, plus elevation gain on top of it. On top of that we spent most of the hike swarmed by bugs. I do not recommend this trail to anyone! There weren't any decent spots to camp so we just slogged along, hot, tired, feet aching, muscles aching, joints aching, attacked by insects. We really should have just hiked up to bearpaw from redwood and then headed back to crescent meadow. We could've even camped somewhere nice. Oh well! Never doing the Middle Fork Kaweah River trail again! Finally at around 5 PM we reached the car. I had left a box of cheez-its and a gallon of water in the bear locker which turned about to be one of the best decisions ever. So other than the very end it was an absolutely amazing trip. It makes me strongly consider doing the full HST or at least returning to the Kaweahs. Just don't take the middle fork Kaweah trail!!!!
