Well-rested and well-fed is how I left Lone Pine. As soon as I had taken a last shower, packed up my bag, and checked under the bed for anything that may have rolled away to hide, I went to the Alabama Hills Cafe for a huge breakfast, which is not an ideal way to begin a hiking day actually. A big meal sits heavy in the stomach and can be an uncomfortable lump to lug around. But their meals just seem to be that way, huge I mean, and I would never waste food in the middle of a trip like this. Oh no. As I was finishing up my plate, two guys took the table next to me and we struck up a conversation. They are planning to hike up to Mt Whitney but are spending a couple days acclimating to higher elevations and hanging out in the Owens Valley, and they mentioned wanting to go up to Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead to look around. I mentioned needing to get up there after breakfast. They offered a ride–saving me from needing to hitch–so I drank some more coffee and ate a giant, doughy croissant while they finished their breakfasts. Three cups later, I was in the back of the extended cab pickup and we were winding up the steep road into the mountains that I had come down just two days ago.
It was a quick ride filled with pleasant small talk, and suddenly I found myself hiking along again, one foot in front of the other. For the travel from Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead west over to Lodgepole, where my next high route begins, I picked some trails of a large National Geographic map of the area, not knowing much at all about them. Part of the route I’ve chosen includes the High Sierra Trail which I have heard is lovely, and I could have mostly hiked that the entire way. It goes over Mt Whitney and overlaps with the JMT though, and I really don’t need to spend any more time on the JMT if I don’t have to. I’ve had to travel its dusty track so much already, so I chose some different trails that went through Golden Trout Wilderness and would enter Sequoia National Park from the south, at the lower Kern River Trail. I knew that I was going to be walking through the southern end of the range, but otherwise I had no idea what to expect of my chosen route.
Well. It was dusty and sandy. And after a high of 10400 feet shortly after leaving the trailhead, it was mostly gentle downhill through lodgepole and other pine forests, for twenty miles. It was pleasant in its own way, the monotony of it a little anesthetizing, and so a little relaxing. The trail wound past some cattle herds grazing on a big meadow, and I was entertained by watching a horse rider attempt to round up a recalcitrant group of cows and get them walking in the same direction. There was always at least one and often several cows wandering off, and as the rider would go to bring them back, a few others would amble away. Like the landscape inside my mind as I amble these trails, always with some part whisping off in the breeze in one direction or another.
Ah, refreshing Fruit Punch Gatorade in the mountains. I buy it for the bottles, which are the best, lightest water bottles for backpacking. Can’t bring myself to just pour out the unnatural substance inside, even though I don’t much like it.
Cows, lodgepoles, and sand.
A thunderhead built up in the sky around noon and amidst the thunderous grumbles, rain started. It would go for a bit, heavy hard splattering drops, then stop, then go, then stop, and this continued much of the day. As I continued west and continued down, the air grew smoky, lightly at first and then thicker and thicker. There is a fire in Golden Trout Wilderness, south of where I was hiking but the wind was carrying all the smoke northward. Between the smoke and the rain, it was quite an atmospheric day as I walked and walked and walked through the relatively homogeneous terrain of pines, sand, and igneous rocks.
A murder of crows against tumultuous skies
Ah, that good mountain air
Towards the end of the day the rain stopped and the trail dropped more steeply to meet the Kern River. Shortly after beginning this descent, the trail crossed a natural bridge, a hole in a mess of lava rock through which a creek flowed. And later, towards the bottom of the descent, the creek cascaded down hundreds of feet of cliff, which was beautiful through the haze of the smoke. However, it was increasingly hot, and I was being mobbed by the most annoying kind of little fly which is fascinated by faces, and persistently hovers right at the nose, less than an inch away. I was using my big National Geographic map to furiously fan them away from my face, and sometimes I’d hit myself in the nose with map. Between the heat, the little flies, the whaps on the nose with the map, the steep and slippery descent, and the haze that made it difficult to see much of the Kern Canyon I was descending into, it was a pretty unpleasant end of the day. I finally arrived at the bottom at 6500 feet, the lowest I’ve been on this hiking trip, not counting resupply days. The land is very different at these lower elevations. Less austere. Also hotter and buggier. I followed the trail across a big, sturdy bridge spanning the Kern River, entered the park, and headed north until I found a good campsite next to the river around 7p.
Spirals in the wild
This old water tower platform stood at the site of a seemingly abandoned ranger station.
Haze over the Kern River Canyon.
The natural bridge
This is typical of the forests I walked through today.
The Kern River is really quite a beautiful river. I’ll be walking alongside it for some time tomorrow before I climb 4000 feet back up around timberline, out of the heat and away from the bugs. Presumably as I head north and away from the fires, the smoke will begin to clear.
The moon is bright enough to cast moon shadows and the bubbling river and cricket song are filling out the night sounds. Well, that and a very active thunder storm to the east, probably over the Sierra Crest. The rumblings are coming in steady rolls. I wonder if it will rain tonight.
The Kern River from my camp.
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