AlmostOG

For the past few years, people have been asking me if they could join me on a backpacking trip. I’ve always said of course, but I never got around to setting something up. Finally, after my trip last August, my old roommate Brendan asked again and got me thinking…

So some months ago I sent out an email to a few friends asking if they were interested in finally going on that hike. The response was surprisingly positive (alarmingly so), and the group kept growing. I finally capped it at 10 people, with Heather, the sole girl, sneaking in to bring the total to 11.

Organizing a backpacking trip for 11 people is tough. Food, permits, transportation, gear - there’s a lot of variables. Thankfully, folks stepped in to help out, and everything went off without a hitch. I’ll write a little bit more about the trip below, but if you want to skip straight to the photos, check out the links.

• Backpacking in the Jennie Lakes Wilderness & Kings Canyon National Park (32 photos)
• View only the OG favorites (10 photos)

Note: I don’t usually post other people’s photos on my site, but I’ve decided to include several oustanding shots from my brother Haskell, and my friends Mike and Heather.

The Trip

People came from all over the country! The breakdown: 2 East Coasters, 3 Midwesterners, 1 So. Cal, and 5 No. Cal. We loaded up one car in San Diego and the other 2 cars departed from San Francisco.

We spent the first night camping near the trailhead at Big Meadows Campground, getting acclimated to 7,500 ft and recovering after a long drive. We had a little bit of rain that evening, and some people retreated to the cars for cover - I found a group of pine trees to shield me. Unfortunately, we were poorly equiped for rain, having only enough tents for 8 people, with a couple of tarps on the side. Lesson: it does rain in California in the summer.

On our first day of hiking, we did about 5 miles to Jennie Lakes with around 1,200 ft of vertical. It drizzled off and on during the hike, but it was a short day and we got to the campsite pretty early. We dropped our packs, and took a swim in the lake. That evening, we ate a sausage and rice dish for dinner (eh), and baked Heather a birthday cake for dessert. Nate V. discovered the wonders of the Nutella s’more, which became a mainstay for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, we had quite a bit of rain that evening, and some of us (Sassan, Mathias, Nate V., myself) suffered during the night.

The next day was our longest, but the weather cleared up and we had perfect conditions. We descended from 9,000 ft to 8,400 ft and then had to climb over Silliman Pass at 10,100 ft. It was a fairly steep ascent, but we picked a slow pace and everyone made it to the top with no problems. After a long photo session, we descended 1,000 ft to Ranger Lake. All told, I think we did about 8 miles that day.

That night it was pasta & pesto for dinner, with instant pudding for dinner. The pasta was pretty good, but I brought way too much pudding which we then had to pack out. That night, several of us grabbed our sleeping bags and pads and camped out a couple hundred yards away on a rock outcropping to check out the stars. Unfortunately, the nearly-full moon came out not to long afterwards, and diminished the starry view.

The next day we had a short 4 mile hike to Seville Lake. We dropped our bags, ate lunch, and decided to tackle one of the large peaks rising up behind the lake. A couple of folks stayed back to tend camp, and the rest of us started climbing. It was a difficult climb with some tricky scrambles, but we finally made it to the top and enjoyed a good, but not jaw-dropping view.

That night (Saturday), the campsites were all filled with Labor Day hikers — I’m glad we left a few days early because we managed to avoid nearly all the crowds. For dinner we ate burritos (delicious) and attempted a no-bake cookie recipe with mediocre results.

The next morning we got up, drank some coffee and started hiking. We finished our 5-6 mile hike by noon and packed up the cars. On our way out of Kings Canyon National Park, we stopped by one of the Sequoia groves and saw some gigantic trees. We didn’t stay for long — In N’ Out Burger and a shower was calling our names.

A huge thanks to the 10 people who came on the trip with me. It was a great time and I looking forward to doing it again. For those of you who want to come on the next trip, leave a comment below. Let’s make it happen!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 11:50 pm and is filed under News, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.