Moments in Dirt and Ink

Inyo National Forest Sequoia National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 (The night was too warm even for my light quilt until a breeze came up to mix the night air a little bit. Soaking in the hot spring under the bright Milky Way was great, but now it is morning and time to hike out on an often hot trail. The moon rose a thin crescent in the dawn light, but the sun is very slow to get up after it. Since I had no photos of the spring after getting in at sunset, some in shadow would just have to do. The meadow and my late night neighbors are not yet in sun either. The main pool at Jordan Hot Spring with the cold water channel to help regulate the water temperature. The main pool is bubbling everywhere. I do not remember it having that many "air jets" a couple years ago, but it is probably not something that changes much. Little hot creeks flow in in a couple places. As much as the tub was too hot to soak in for more tha...

Inyo National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 Templeton, the original impetus for this trip plan, sits serenely across a short meadow and a random little hill. Should I get to a "better" position to start up it, or just clamber right up it and that little hill for good measure? Packed up, I go searching for that elusive trail, but there really is no certain sign of it. There is a funny looking post on the far side of the meadow that looks to have trail beside it. Maybe. And maybe that is a line there. As I hit the creek, there are a couple rocks set out to help hop it without getting my feet too wet, although the meadow plants are doing a good job of wetting my shoes already. The post turns out to be another location poster with an unfamiliar format, but this one is only about 7 years old. It is at the edge of dry land and points to something right by the creek only 51.6 meters away. I look, but nothing is obvious. Locatio...

Inyo National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 With the wet ground and falling temperatures in the night, there was a fair bit of dew. As the sky brightens, a moo drifts across the grass. Ah, wildlife. The mist hangs over the meadows, especially around the river, but it increases and moves as the sun rises and warms the wet ground. I thought I was well situated to get some morning rays, but it just takes forever to get over the mountains. Mist on the meadows in the morning. Eventually, I realize the sun actually is glowing up there in the sky, however what was a sky full of stars has somehow turned into a sky full of clouds. There is no telling how long it will take the sun to come out, so everything will just have to be put away wet. Since I ignored the road to find water and then camp last night, I have to go find it again in the morning. This is easy, it is right where I left it. Then I have to try to navigate the man...

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 The rain overnight was not so bad as we feared it might be. It was actually stopping as we set up and cleared off overnight only to cloud up and rain again shortly before morning. None of the rain was particularly hard. It is clearing again as we get up and everything is drying quickly. First, we have to finish what was supposed to happen yesterday, a short jaunt up and over Coyote Lakes Pass. Trail wraps around the edge of the meadow to a well established campsite, then gets headed toward the pass. It seems to make perfectly straight lines as it switchbacks up the last couple hundred feet. Water can flow here, but currently it is a dry meadow moistened by rain. Coming up to the north side of Coyote Lakes Pass, which is not so big, especially if starting out at around 10,000 feet. Looking back over the bowl that is the headwaters of Coyote Creek.

Sequoia National Forest Sequoia National Park DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 After getting a mound of water for breakfast and another mound for hiking for the day, a procedure that seems to take forever with a Sawyer mini, Bernard is somehow still sleeping. The shaded creek is full of tiny Humboldt lilies and I enjoy my nice hot breakfast before giving him a little kick to get started on the hiking for the day. Today we climb and, as far as we know, this is the last water before the lakes at the top. The trail is a lot easier to find as we start today than it was as we ended yesterday. Humboldt lilies are among the thick green around Rifle Creek. Back out into the scar left by the 2012 Lion Fire, but at least some sawyers have come by. The trail becomes faint in places as we twist up through the forest. There are still a few big logs to jump over, but it is not so bad that the few mule prints we find on the trail seem out of place. Pistol Cree...

Sequoia National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Bernard wanted to hit the trail for a few days, which became a few less days. When he was saying 5 days, I was thinking Woodchuck Country and Blackcap Basin, but when he said we would have to be back by Monday, I quickly changed to the peaks I looked at last November and decided I could not include after all. The unknown nature of water availability was the problem then and is still a problem now, but easier to deal with on a shorter trip carrying less food. After calling in for my permit, I realized I could do the loop clockwise and water would probably be easier on the way up. We must have psychic people filling these out, because that was how my permit was already set up for me. We dropped ourselves in Lewis Camp the evening before, ready to hit the trail in the morning. Again entering Golden Trout Wilderness from Lewis Camp. I was told to expect water only at the river and lakes because of th...

Sequoia National Forest Locate the trailhead. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8 A little poking around find the remains of a dead horse left just up the hill from the trail and the trail that cuts across to the Little Kern River from Willow Meadows. Away from the camp, the trail is quite obvious as it climbs steadily, once needing a little switchback. The area is burned at the top. Coming into the burn area and finding the manzanita almost completely gone. More burned trees and manzanita. The last peaks as the Great Western Divide comes to its southern end. A sign tells me where I am going and where I am coming from as I cross a trail that comes up from the Trout Meadows Ranger Station and drops down to Burnt Corral Meadows. It might make a nice alternate route back adding on about 4.5 easy miles to get there and then cross the Little Kern R...

Inyo National Forest Sequoia National Forest Locate the trailhead. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8 My attempt at getting some sun in the morning has failed as my camp is still deep in shadow as the buildings and trees across the creek gain the sun. The original plan has three days to hike out, but that was really to give an extra day "just in case". Under normal circumstances, I would hike most of the next two days in a single go and the mention of the first weekend of hunting season provides a little extra motivation to get out earlier. With a reasonably early start, I should be able to get down to Kern Flat and loaded with water by 1PM. If I start the "six mile climb" back out of Kern Canyon, really only 1500 feet up, I should be able to stumble into a camp I know has water by sunset. The GPS shows sunset is somehow half an hour earlier than it was w...

Inyo National Forest Locate the trailhead. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8 Today is a very easy day. The morning is to be looking for monuments around Casa Vieja Meadows and wandering three miles or so down the trail. The afternoon is to be sitting in the hot springs and exploring old cabins from when it was a commercial concern. The morning sun on the meadow is stunning, and after some battling with the camera in need of a new battery, I can capture a slightly lesser moment of the light. Then, with breakfast put away, I turn my attention to climbing the small peak just north of my campsite. Manzanita makes a feeble attempt to block my way sometimes and I am quickly into a cold wind, but soon find myself on Doc Peak, as it is labeled in the OpenStreetMap. It is another labeled with a benchmark on the 1905 Olancha 30' map and on the more recent 1987 Casa...

Inyo National Forest Locate the trailhead. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8 A good study of the map while having supper for breakfast suggests I am hanging out by Movie Stringer. One of the guys with the stock had suggested I should try to get down into it for water. Looks like he had a good idea there, although he also thought I would be traveling through Ramshaw Meadows for a bit but I only got close enough to see it through the trees briefly, and thought Ramshaw Meadows would be my last chance for water before the peak so did not know about all the water in the Kern Peak Stringer. The trail up to the peak shows much less evidence of stock travel than the other trails, he probably has never actually gone up it. He said there was a corner in Ramshaw, too, so at least one of the three I have found marked on the map is really there. I want to poke around T...

Inyo National Forest Locate the trailhead. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8 The early morning comes with burning eyes and a stuffed nose and allergy medicine only partly helps it. It is a very poor sleep after not particularly good sleeps. My start is late, but I am not in much of a hurry. I have a 5.6 mile climb along trail to get to the top of Kern Peak and an even shorter way down, hopefully partly on trail, to get down again. Once packed up and supplied with a bit over 2L of water, it is time to climb slightly and find the faint, but clear trail along the top of the slight hill I was sleeping on. It seems to take random turns as it wanders through the trees past yellow painted tin can tops nailed to the trees. Sometimes another, even fainter, old route can be seen beside the current route. The trail drifts up to a saddle this way, then splits. A "K...

Sequoia National Forest Inyo National Forest Locate the trailhead. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8 The deep canyon of the Kern River stays in shadow a long time. While eating breakfast, I realize that one of the trees beside me with bark like a redwood actually has pine needles as well. The other trees are more cedars, but I have finally found a redwood among them. It is a little one that would only require a couple people to give it a hug. Hiking out, it continues to be a gentle slope up the river, but the river returns to an obviously churning and roaring thing as things get rocky again. I can see a large break in the canyon ahead on the east side which will be my leaving point. There is a bypass trail for "visitors with pets and weapons" or just no need to go to the national park, so I take that. Sun coming through the break in the canyon for G...

Sequoia National Forest Locate the trailhead. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8 It is neither early nor late as I get started on the day's hiking. I need to make up four miles. Two trails are supposed to leave from near the bridge and go to Willow Meadows, according to Tom Harrison. As I follow the one trail I can find, I can faintly see a track leading steeply up the other side of the little canyon it has just traversed, but nothing that looks like trail. A little further is an unsigned, but real, junction for the shorter route that I hike right on past. This keeps me on a fairly level and easy route around the edge of old lava into Trout Meadows. The nearby roar of a chain saw adds to the wilderness noises, going for a short time and finishing again. Looking out over the old lava flow in the morning sunlight. Looking down the Little Kern River ...

Sequoia National Forest Locate the trailhead. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7  |  DAY 8 I got it into my head to do a good look around of the Golden Trout Wilderness. I have made my way through a corner of if and looked down on its expanse from there, but never come down into its expansive meadows and plateaus. A basic loop for such a journey can be found here. Adding on things like the Coyote Peaks is tempting, but the report that Deep Creek, the major water source on the way, is dry somehow dampens that idea. A climb up Kern Peak seems necessary. Blackrock Trailhead on the Inyo side actually makes a bit more sense, but is a fair bit longer drive. Jerky Meadow is another popular trailhead with similar access to Lewis Camp. Signs could be better for getting to Lewis Camp. I turn at the big advertisement sign for the Golden Trout Packtrain at the end of highwa...