May 18, 2009 Lower Paradise Valley to Back Home

What a difference a day makes! Got up at 6:00am. Ate breakfast—standard fare. Enjoyed the morning. Finished a GK Chesterton book-The Man Who Was Thursday. We should be taking off right about the time I would be at work. Still wonderful. The sun has not even reached our campsite yet,
We leave around 8:10. If we needed to, we could have cut 45 minutes off of our getting ready. But we have about 3 hours to get back to the car, so it is not bad to take it easy. (We take 4+ hours)
It is cooler. I hike in my shorts; Sheri in long pants. Once we hit the sun, Sherri goes to shorts.
It is good to hike in the morning. Everything is so fresh. We come around a corner, there are two deer laying in the brush, about 20’ off of the trail. The river is putting on a show. You see its mist puffing up from the river as it careens down its course. It is rushing down in its hurry and sometime fury to be the first at the end.
The flowers are out. Making ones trip colorful. Also saw a common king snake—at least I think it was.
Mist Falls was good. We took more pictures and then headed down. Made pretty good time. We stopped at our lunch spot at the bridge. Only two more miles to go. Got driven out of our lunch spot by bugs—not terrible, just more than our comfort at the moment. Sky is clouding over. We hear a couple sounds of thunder—but don’t feel anything. We get to the truck around 12:30. Certainly cooler with cloud cover.
Now off we go to Bear Mountain Pizza, then home. Good trip.

Just a note on what we missed. Saturday, the high was 99F. Then Sunday it was 106. Glad we were in the mountains. Even though we were sweating, we were still a lot cooler than in Fresno.

May 17, 2009 Day Hike: Lower Paradise Valley to Upper Paradise Valley

Got up a bit late. Felt very refreshed Last night I get up once to go pee and Sherri twice. During one of her outings, she decided to take my pillow outside—I must have done something wrong. But slept well other wise.
Light and dark comes late and early in the valley. The valley goes North and South and the walls are steep. I get up to pump water and read. Restful. Now to eat our oatmeal and granola breakfast. Breakfast was at 10am. That tells you how late we got up.
After lollygagging for awhile, we decide to go on a day hike up the valley. Between Lower Camp and Middle camp, the GPS measured .8 miles with a total of 243’ rise—but only a 100’ total elevation gain. Nice place to stay. Had lunch and rest—we are pretty pathetic, aren’t we?
As we progress up the valley, water falls from all parts of the valley’s rim. Some are mere rivulets’, others are full fledged falls. With the heat, the snow is melting fast, the water was flowing furiously. One such creek we had to take our shoes off to cross it—the water was cold.
Probably should say a word about the water filter. Our Hiker filter is much better than the previous filters. It is easy to pump; the water comes out cold and with the taste which I remember of Sierra streams.
We got to the Upper end of Paradise Valley around 3:00pm. The South Fork has made a swamp of the area. You could still get across it, but it is wading time. Since it is late in the afternoon, we decide to turn back.
The trip back to camp is pretty fast-about 2 ½ hours. Different scenery coming down—or at least seen from a different perspective. Back to camp around 5:30pm.
Had dinner—Beef stew in a bag. Washed up and then gawked for an hour at Avalanche Peak at the end of Paradise Valley. Went to bed a bit early.
Lots of deer around. River is slower, but wider. We go to bed as darkness falls.

May 16, 2009 Road's End to Lower Paradise Valley

First trip of the season! Actually the first trip out for me in the last two seasons. And we got a late start to boot. Blame me on this one—on two counts. First Sherri pretty much had to get this one together—she had to pack us on this one. And secondarily, I was working until this morning.

So Sherri got us packed and we left the house around 10:00am. Sherri drove until we reached Kings Canyon and I drove into the Canyon—Roads End. Got our permit and off we went. Well, sort of. Talked with some people from Washington about snow plants. Off we go a little after 12:30.

Rivers are running high. Even the creeks will be challenging. Sherri took of her shoes at the second creek after Copper Creek. This is a creek we would ordinarily cross by rock hopping, or it would be dry.

The day is hot. The first two miles. As we knew before, was going to be dry, sandy and exposed. But we are on the trail. Good joy!

We met a couple from San Francisco. At least they live there now. Greg is from Buffalo; Gorcha—at least I think that is how you spell her name—is from Poland. Turns out they need about twice as much water as they brought. Later on, we pump water for them, right before Mist Falls.

We stop for lunch at the Bubbs Creek Trail Junction. Its pleasant. Cooler. River is flowing swiftly. Lunch is the usual—peanut butter, nutella an crackers—ah so good. Its already after two—we have made some pretty good time.

Now It cools down, but the climb starts up the 600’ to Mist Falls. Sherri is doing pretty good. We shall hear the roar of the river until we reach Paradise Valley. We stop at Mist Falls to fill our bottles and make CytoMax. I get all wet from the spray. At least the one side of me does.

Now for the hard work. We climb 900’ up to Paradise Valley. It’s a familiar trail we like well. Sherri is starting to feel drained. But that all changes when we see a rattler on the trail. Medium sized. We wait for it to pass. It takes up residency in some rocks to the side of the trail. We pass on the other side. From that time forward Sherri stays a lot closer to me and I take more breaks.

As an aside, Sherri has been hiking with poles for four years. Myself, I am not sure about them. Andrea let me try hers for an hour a couple of years ago. Not sure that I am a true believer yet. But at the last REI sale, I bought some REI poles, but then traded them in for some Black Diamonds. This is the first use of them. Going on the flat or climbing on dirt they are great. For going up rock steps I came close to tripping a couple of times. I guess I will need to figure out how to use them. Oh yeah. Around the rattler, I was glad to have them. Will need to work with them.

We got to Paradise Valley a little before 7:00pm. Long day. Most of the spots already taken. We camp at #2. Pleasant enough, but exposed to the trail. The men in #3, next to us have a good conversation. We have soup and noodles for dinner. Then an after dinner Girl Scout cookie—sin and paradise all in one. Lots of deer around. River is slower, but wider. We go to bed as darkness falls.