After four days of walking up kings canyon, I realized three things:
1) Its called Kings Canyon because its a Canyon, and if you want to get to the high peaks you better be ready to climb!
2) There is no human king that could be the namesake for this canyon, the beauty of this natural place is far more powerful than any human.
3) No matter how bad the economy is, nor how many wars are being fought, the outdoors will remain great in every sense of the word. If you ever feel like the state of the worlds affairs is bringing you down, go outside.
Last week, my longtime friend, Dom and I decided to take a backpack trip to Kings Canyon National Park. At the trailhead, we decided to attempt a 48 mile loop, not realizing how difficult it would be to climb 7000 feet and walk that far in only 3.5 days. So about halfway through the journey we abandoned the entire loop, and decided to enjoy the distance that we had gone.
overall we hiked about 40 miles and climbed 5000 feet. So it was nothing to scoff at. It was hot, and awe-inspiring. the granite walls of the canyon seemed to climb on forever.
We saw three rattlesnakes, one bear cub, and a number of deer, one who nearly ran into the tent in the middle of the night and scared us to death. We met a lot of people who were hiking much longer distances than us (the 211 mile John Muir Trail). We fished, we ate, we swam in the cool sierra waters, we wandered through the wilderness, we pondered life, and overall we escaped into a beautiful enveloping natural landscape.
here are a few more pictures of the trip:
the 10,000 feet dance!
a columbine at Dollar Lake
rattler #3
a refreshing King's river dip
food doesn't taste any better than this
not as tired as he looks
climbing through a granite meadow
after a discussion about politics and the economy
end of the trail.
ad for your viewing pleasure, a slideshow: probably not too appropriate.
Listening to Magnolia Electric Co.
Josephine
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