16.7 miles of hiking • 3500' elevation gain • 2 nights
Work sent me to central CA for a couple of day at the end of last week, which meant another weekend to locate another one of Shorty Lovelace's cabins in Kings Canyon NP. Our target this time, Shorty's "headquarters" in Crowley Canyon. This particular set of cabins was built somewhere around 1912.
We got a late start, picking up permits at Grant Grove at 3pm. This put us at the Rowell Meadow TH at 4pm. The first night, we only hiked in about 2.5 miles to an established campsite near Rowell Meadow, maybe a half mile from the snow survey cabin.
Saturday morning, woke up to the sound of what I thought was rain. It turns out, that we got a dusting of snow and hail overnight. We got a late start, getting on the trail around 11am to head to Comanche Meadow. We cached gear at Comanche, and then headed cross country up Crowley Canyon to look for Shorty's Cabin. We were about 0.2 miles from our target location (based on a set of 1970's era UTM coordinates), when we stumbled upon an area littered with old rusted metal sheets and broken glass. No more than 50 yards away, was the ruins of Shorty's Crowley Canyon Cabin. :)
After exploring the cabin ruins, and the site with metal and glass, which was likely the location of the second building at that location, we headed back to our gear cache at Comanche Meadow. We contemplated continuing on to Seville Lake, but with dark grey clouds overhead and it was already getting cold, we opted to stay at Comanche for the night and build our first ever backcountry campfire. About an hour after dark, we heard one heck of a racket coming up the trail. As it passed our camp we heard a woman say "Hello, I am the ranger from the Roaring River station. Please do not shine any lights in my direction, as I am packing out and the lights might spook the horses." We talked briefly, but she wanted to let us know the forecast had changed and that there would be snow overnight at the 9000' level. She also said there was one group behind us and then inquired about our travel plans. After a brief conversation, she continued along in the darkness.
Sunday morning, we woke to a steady rain, which then turned to snow. We hiked out with snowflakes falling and a light blanket of snow covering the trail. There's nothing like fresh tracks in the snow. :)
