sierra nevada

Sequoia/Kings Canyon NP Onion Valley Trailhead 8/1 - 8/8/18 (7 nights) Warning: this is long and probably has too many photos (mix of camera and cellphone) and definitely has too many details that most of you won't care about After a lot of backpacking in KY heat last summer, I decided that I...

Originally I had permits for a route in The Minarets area but the Lions fire kicked back up in activity and left me scrambling to find a new plan a week out. Conditions looked clear in SEKI and I remembered of a spot a friend had mentioned to me as one of the most spectacular spots in the range...

My nephew Daniel from Spain, his wife, and two of their friends had planned to visit us in California, and he had requested a camping trip to see Yosemite and, if possible a backpacking trip as well. The only challenge was that his schedule was a bit up in the air, and we couldn't count on...

This is a backpacking trip I completed with a friend along the High Sierra Trail from Crescent Meadow to the Whitney Portal back in August of 2012. It was an eight day trip of approximately 70 miles from west to east. The trip could easily be done in six or seven days, but we had an extremely...

Seeing how winter was going to end early (not sure it ever really started..), my friend and I decided to look for snow before it all melted. Seeing how Yosemite was looking dry and having gone to SEKI in the past week, we planned to check out the Eastern Sierra. With the NOAA data showing areas...

Mt Ritter and Banner had such big cliffs, throw in any lake called Iceberg, plus seeing photos of Minaret lakes - the combination had put the Ansel Adams Wilderness on my list years ago. I'm pretty fit, but this time the combination of miles, elevation gain, high elevation air, 43lbs with...

I 'm back from a three day trip to Summit City Canyon with a trail work party. Spectacular weather and a group of really nice guys made this a real pleasure. I began by leaving Napa at a little before 5 a.m. to get to the trailhead in time to meet the group, At about 9:30 the first team hit...

Preface: I just started backpacking this year with a goal of backpacking in the Sierras someday. I spent the spring and summer backpacking around PA and WV. Probably a half dozen trips, one two nighter, and a couple solo. My fiancee and kids liked me to be able to check in, so I got an...

Labor Day weekend is one if the busiest times of the year in the back country. The combination of a long weekend, minimal mosquitoes, and a last gasp effort to get out in the trail means that many wilderness areas can be positively crowded, tent to tent at some lakes. Which is what we were...

This was a few days ago, mid August 2017. The route on Caltopo is this, direction is counter clockwise: . Highlights were climbing Feather, exploring West Pinnacle Creek and crossing Gemini Col. We were a group of 5: my wife and son, one of his buddies, and our dog. Snow levels right now...

Good afternoon All! Hope the summer hiking has been splendid for all. Two weekends ago, Ash and I decided that we needed to recover from our cabin fever and opted to head up to Sequoia. Didn't really have any plan and just opted to see what was available at the ranger station at Grant Grove...

July 14th - 18th 2015. Glacier Point, Yosemite to Red's Meadow. Total distance approx. 65 miles. Inspired by @ZubenElGenubi's Thousand Island Lake trip report, I thought i'd contribute my first real trip report to BCP. I've wanted to hike the JMT for a few years now but getting the time off...

Summary: August 15-17, 2015; three-day, two-night backpacking trip through Ansel Adams Wilderness. Background: I was going to be around Yosemite for a couple of weeks in August and wanted to visit Thousand Island Lake (inspired by a great outdoor show called "Motion" - more later). I...

For a few years now, we've made many attempts to hike to Island Lake in the Desolation Wilderness. We chose to cancel on our first attempt because of a nasty storm. Then P got sick right before we were to go the second time. Both times, we lost the $26 reservation fee via Recreation.gov. The...

We spent Labor Day weekend hiking cross-country to Hyatt Lake in the Emigrant Wilderness--an adventure we're glad we did, but not one that we would recommend without reservation. It involved some basic topo map navigation, a certain amount of real effort, and just enough bushwhacking to keep...

Last season I fell in love with the Eastern Sierras; starting with options out of Bishop, CA. Tom Harrison’s Bishop Pass map begs for one to complete North Lake to South Lake or South Lake to North Lake via Evolution Basin/Valley located in Kings Canyon National Park. On average, Evolution...

After giving the weather a couple of days to settle down, we were back at North Lake to spend four days exploring Humphreys Basin. It’s easy to understand why this is such a popular trailhead. The first half of the climb up to Paiute Pass is through forested slopes along the side of a creek...

Lamarck Lakes posted 8 minutes agoJul 19, 2015, 6:46 AM by Paul Wagner Since we were keeping a close eye on the weather, and we had one day “left over” from our Mono Pass trip, we took the opportunity to day-hike up to Lamarck Lakes on July 7. The weather report was for thunderstorms, rain...

The first of our three trips in July was out of the Rock Creek Canyon up over Mono Pass into Mono Creek and the Pioneer Basin. We’d picked up our permit in Bishop, and the ranger there suggested that the backpackers’ campground at Mosquito Flat was likely to be full. That was a problem, so we...

We arrived in Yosemite on Sunday evening and were amazed to find campsites available at Porcupine Flat. In fact, the campground was more than half empty all night…and they had spaces at the Tuolumne Meadows campground as well. It's hard to imagine that the park would be that open in the middle...