8.5 miles of hiking • 2000' elevation gain • 1 night
First backpacking trip ever!
It's not that I've been avoiding it, in fact I've been collecting backcountry gear for 5+ years (to the point where I've starting upgrading gear). The issue was always finding someone to go with. So when I told a friend I was coming down to Central CA for a few days and I wanted to backpack the Sierras, we threw together a quick overnight trip in the Mineral King area of Sequoia NP.
We left Fresno, CA at 6:30am. After getting permits, chatting with the rangers and being advised of the "dastardly deer" that was in the area, we final hit the trail at 10:30am. We opted to add a couple miles to our trip by leaving the car at the picnic area shortly before the ranger's station at the advice of the rangers in an effort to avoid the marmots that are infamous for eating cars at the Sawtooth trailhead parking lot.
The hike up to Timber Gap allowed us views of Mineral King Valley all the way up the trail. With perfect weather, it was a gorgeous day for hiking and thankfully we were above the inversion layer that typcially socks Central California in smog. It took us about 4 hours to get to the Timber Gap. Typically it would not take nearly 4 hours to travel 3.3 miles, but with a starting elevation of approxmately 7500ft, then add that it was my hiking partner's first hike of the season, we opted to take our time to acclimate to the elevation change.
Once we arrived at Timber Gap, I still felt like hiking, so I ditched the pack with my hiking partner and took off to look for a place to camp near water. The map showed a stream along the trail and about a 800 feet below the our location, so I decided to check it out. I hiked followed the trail another mile (and about 1000 ft below Timber Gap). The alpine forest quickly gave way to a short meadow, and then chapparal. Not great areas to make camp. Even better, the stream was dry. So I quickly hiked back up to Timber Gap, where we decided to make camp after finding a small snow field for water.
We didn't meet the "dastardly deer", but we did see several deer, including one we nicknamed "stalker deer" since he kept circling camp to see what we were up to.
From camp we were able to watch both sunset and sunrise over the SEKI wilderness. We headed back to the trailhead around 9:30am and were back at the car by 11:30am.
