On July 03, Judy, Aaron, Kate, and myself headed up to King’s Canyon for a four-day backpacking trip. We couldn’t secure permits in advance so the plan was to head up on Wednesday, camp in front of the ranger station and hope that enough permits would still be available on Thursday morning. If we could get permits, we would set out on Thursday morning; if not, we would have to wait until 1:00 PM Thursday afternoon to get permits to start on Friday.

We left San Diego around 2:30 and hit a bit of traffic on the way. Dinnertime found us at Lyons where we stopped off to have some Italian food at Floritinos Trattoria. The food was pretty good. And since we were about to set off on a calorie-consuming backpacking trip, we felt a big dessert was in order so we hit a nearby Baskin Robbins for some yummy ice cream dessert.

We continued on and ended up getting to the ranger’s station at a little past midnight. We quickly unpacked, put the necessary items into the nearby bear box and then prepared for sleep. Aaron and Kate brought bivies and slept outside next to the 4-Runner while Judy and I slept inside the vehicle.

Aaron and Kate awoke around 5:30 the next morning and were the first in line for permits. If there were enough permits left, we were sure to get them. Judy and I got up about half an hour later and one of the first things I noticed was that I was getting bites on my legs from seemingly invisible insects, probably no-see-ums. Little did I know that this was a foreboding of things to come.

The ranger arrived promptly at 7:15, gave a brief talk where he warned about bears and the need to have bear cannisters. We had all just brought Ursacks which are much lighter than traditional bear cannisters but have not been specifically approved for the areas where we planned to go. So we all just nodded when he asked everyone if they’ve used bear cannisters before. He also briefly mentioned that many people had complained about mosquitos in recent days, yet another foreboding of things to come.

Enough permits were available for our group so we all got ready to set out. Aaron had pretty much planned out the entire trip and provided us all with maps – we made copies beforehand so that everyone had their own set. Much of the route was off-trail and we would be hiking about 8 miles per day. Grouse Lake was the destination of the first night’s campsite, Horseshoe Lakes the second night, and Granite Lake the third. You can take a look at the main map here.

The first day was to be the most gruelling; we were to hike from 5,050 feet to 10,500 feet, an elevation gain of nearly 5,500 feet over about 7 miles. Including water, Kate’s pack weighed in at around 23 lbs, Judy’s 23 lbs as well, Aaron’s 30 lbs, and mine 35 lbs. Clearly, I could use some lighter gear.

The weather was nice. It was a bit hot, but cooled down as we gradually gained elevation. Lower Tent Meadow was roughly halfway to Grouse Lake and we thought it was a good place to stop, have some food, and pump some more water. This was actually the place where Aaron and I stayed the last time we came here. Weatherwise, it was much better this time as it was pouring rain the last time we were here. Much to our dismay, this time around the mosquitos were much, much worse. We decided to continue further up the trail to try to keep from getting eaten alive. Unfortunately, Aaron had to stay and pump some water because he and Kate had run out.

Aaron soon caught up to us later on and we all continued on. We had blazed up the first half of the trail, but soon slowed down considerably. Everyone was starting to get really tired, especially me since I don’t aclimate very well. Our pace slowed quite a bit and we took frequent rest stops.

We were all highly relieved when we finally got to Grouse Lake. The hardest part of the trip was over and we were all looking forward to setting up camp and having a relaxing dinner. Much to our dismay, however, a gazillion mosquitos decided to prevent that from happening and set out to make our experience at Grouse Lake as miserable as possible.

We scrambled to set up our tents as quickly as possible amid an endless bombardment of mosquitos. Bug repellent didn’t seem to have much of an effect on these things. To cap things off, I was pretty much feeling completely like shit at this point. Our tents were quickly set up and in our haste, they certainly were not set up as well as they should have been. As soon as the tents were up, Aaron, Kate, and I all crawled inside to finally escape from the nasty bugs. Judy, the ever resilient outdoorswoman, decided to brave the bugs to pump some water.

The altitude was really getting to me and I had a huge headache. We all lay there for a while, but soon it was time for dinner – we had to eat. I was still feeling like crap, but thankfully Judy was gracious enough to cook my dinner for me. I felt a bit better by the time dinner was ready. Everyone basically tried to eat their food as quickly as possible so that they could get back into their tents. It simply wasn’t possible to sit and eat without getting eaten yourself – we had to eat while constantly moving and walking around. After dinner, we quickly tied up the Ursacks and jumped in the tents.

I felt much better the next morning. My body had finally acclimated but the experience was still no fun. For me, the best part of backpacking is getting into camp, having a relaxing dinner, and then kicking back, hanging out and doing some stargazing. With the mosquitos out in full force, this was impossible. Furthermore, Horseshoe Lakes and Granite Lake were all either the same elevation as Grouse Lake or lower so the mosquitos would be just as bad there.

We had a group discussion the next morning and everyone shared similar feelings. Although we had come out all this way and had done the hardest part of the trip, the thought of having to endure two more days and nights against swarms of mosquitos would be at best highly unpleasant. We decided to cut our losses and head back.

Going downhill was much faster and in about 5-1/2 hours, we were back at the trailhead. We packed up the truck and drove back to the ranger’s station where there was a small running stream where we could kind of wash up. After washing up, we stopped at the nearby market for some refreshments and were then on our way back home. We stopped again in Lyons, this time at the Macaroni Grill, for dinner. The ride home was uneventful, save some conversation about evolution v. creationism, god, and whether or not it’s OK to scold somebody else’s dog or child.

The valuable lesson we learned from this adventure? July’s not a good time to go backpacking. Although we have done previous trips in July, it’s probably safer to go in early spring or fall.

Obviously, there’s not as many pics as there would have been had we done the entire trip. All the pics were from my brand new Minolta Dimage X digital camera. Unfortunately, it does not have a panorama mode and I was unsuccessful stitching together the many panorama shots that I took. Other than this feature, it’s a great camera, but I’ll probably be returning it and getting a Canon, most of which have a stitch assist panorama mode.

Here’s the pics.

Posted by Roger at 7:39 PM.