Scratching the Surface of Kings Canyon/Sequoia NP

My best friend (whom I love dearly and would do anything for - just love love love her) and I decided to go to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park last August to escape life and do some hardcore hiking and sightseeing.  Her brothers live in SF/Oakland, so we stopped by to see them before embarking on our SEKI (shorthand for Sequoia Kings Canyon) adventure.
Check out this link for more SEKI details: http://www.nps.gov/seki/index.htm

Amandy handled all of the arrangements.  She did the research and booked the reservations w/ the lodge we stayed at and for the tent camp along the High Sierra Trail.  First stop was the Wuksachi Lodge which is located off of the main road in SEKI.  This was a nice rustic lodge to stay at w/ all the modern amenities most people require.  The night we got there was pretty cool, as they had a power outage and their generators could only provide hot water.  We loved how there were no lights and no TV.  We stayed there for two nights so that we could acclimate to altitude for a day.  We did a short 4 mile hike the next day after we arrived and drove around looking at the typical national park road side scenes such as the stunning overlooks and the General Sherman Tree.  Oh yeah... forgot to mention that when the two of us get together its total chaos!  Lots of silliness and laughter - oh yeah!  You should have seen us at the General Sherman Tree - crazy!

General Sherman Tree

The second day, we headed towards the High Sierra Camp at Bearpaw Meadow.  Amandy booked two nights up there and its a 11.5 mile hike one way via the High Sierra Trail.  We headed up and about a 1/2 mile in we ran into a mama bear and two cubs - ohhhh boy!  My pictures were out of focus and look like crap, but the experience was something else.  We had three backpackers coming the other way walk us around the bears.  We were warned as we went along of other bears; however, we never saw them.  There were mountain lion sitings along the trail as well - no site of those either on our end.  The High Sierra Trail is not a strenuous trail as compared to the east side of the Sierras but don't get me wrong... its still strenuous.  The views are phenomenal.  Both of us had our cameras out the whole time just shooting pictures.  The trail is along a ridge and into some forested area and has several waterfalls along it - beautiful!  We were worried that we wouldn't make the supper call at the tent camp, but we hiked faster than we realized because we got to Bearpaw w/ time to spare.

Mother over to the left and baby in the middle

View along the High Sierra Trail

At Bearpaw, you get to select which tent you want to stay in (there are 6 tents that sleep two people w/ room for a third on the floor).  Amandy had made the reservations on January 2nd when the phone lines open and the slots for the whole year went right away as she didn't have much to choose from (although locals told us they often wait for cancellations and then reserve a spot last minute).  We picked tent 6, the furthest away.  Believe me, we needed to: we get silly.  Also, we were amongst people our parents age that were staying there so we REALLY needed to be in tent 6 (those people also weren't very receptive to us; however, that didn't deter us from having an absolute blast).  Anyway, there was a hot shower (fueled by a wood stove) that was only available a few hours each day and you weren't to dilly dally and use up all of the wood/hot water.  The camp staff had propane there as well for the cooking and cleaning.  Pack mules came in and out (I think it was twice a week - I can't remember) to take dirty linens and garbage out and bring fresh items in.  Dinner and breakfast were served buffet style and the cooking was amazing.  They had full course (and then some) meals going on and the dessert - ahhhhhhhh! Freakin' carrot cake and apricot pie!  Kill me!  They even cooked vegan food for Amandy!  As far as the clientele around at the camp, the best ones were the kitchen staff!

Our Tent for Two Nights

The View Out of Our Tent

Along the Kitchen/Hang Out Area at Camp

The second day at Bear Paw, we hiked 8 miles one way to Hamilton Lake.  The last part of that hike was tough.  We were dragging and we hung out at Hamilton (a popular backpacking campsite) for awhile.  I remember while I was laying there looking out across the lake to a waterfall how most people would never go there... they would never see that place and never know how beautiful it was (after all... 95% of people that visit national parks only get 100' from their car).  I also was thinking of how romantic it would be to have your significant other up there.  God as I'm typing this I'm thinking of that feeling I had then.  We headed back to camp for another glorious meal and we drank wine and talked - got silly and crashed (hard hiking does that to ya).  We left on the third day and enjoyed the scenery on the way back to the trailhead.  We plan to do the whole trail someday all the way to Mt Whitney.

Hamilton Lake along the High Sierra Trail

Amy and Amandy at Hamilton

Getting back to the parking lot and having to do our laundry was hard.  There were so many people all over the place and it was, as Amandy put it, an assault on the senses.  We went on to stay in a fire tower outside of Bakersfield and do some other site seeing but... we both longed for our time in the Sierra Nevada range and wished we had spent more time there.

If you are interested in staying at Wuksachi Lodge and/or Bearpaw Camp (and I highly recommend it - especially Bearpaw), check out these links (home website is the same):
http://www.visitsequoia.com/bearpaw.aspx
http://www.visitsequoia.com/lodging.aspx

I highly recommend checking the first link at the top for more information on SEKI, as there is so much more to do that I'm not even aware of (hence my blog title of "Scratching the Surface").  Yep - Amandy and I really miss tent number 6 ;-)