Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Part II: Shepherd Pass to the mid-Kaweah Basin Last week, I shared the beginning of our 9-day backpacking trip into the Kaweah Basin in Sequoia NP. This week, I'll take us into the middle of the trip, and the middle of the basin. Give me a couple more weeks to get through the trip, because the scenery was amazing, and it's hard to pick just a few photos to share here. Day 2 We left off in the middle of the second day of the trip, as we entered the National Park at 12,000' Shepherd Pass. Descending from the pass. It's a broad, very gently sloping valley, in sharp contrast to the east side of the pass. Still dropping from the pass. We have to descend to the confluence of the deep valleys in the center of the photo, then climb up the valley to the right, and up to the basin below the dark peaks. We found more than one old cabin, probably reminders that before the area was a National Park, miners and sheep herders wandered everywhere. This cabin had a new door with new hing...

I'm finally ready to start my trip report on our recent backpacking extravaganza, 9 days into the Kaweah Basin in Sequoia National Park. The trip really began back in 2015, when my husband, Eldest Son, and I backpacked out of Mineral King in Sequoia NP. Midway down that trip report is a picture of the Kaweah Peaks, one jagged and intriguing crest. I'm not sure how we got from "those are impressive peaks" to "I hear there's an amazing basin on the other side of those peaks," but we did, and found a couple of on-line accounts of accessing the (trail-less) basin. Thus was a plan begun, but until this summer we didn't have the two-week time block we needed to acclimatize and tackle what we would want to do as a 9-10 day trip. Fast-forward to July, 2018. My husband retired, I quit work, and we had the time to train and to do the trip right. I shared some of our acclimatization activities here . Now we had 10 days food, and a plan to enter the Sierra via ...

Okay, confession: we spent 5 days in Sequoia NP...and only saw a few of the big trees as we drove by on our way out.  How did we do that, you ask? We spent our time far above their habitat.  Here's the scoop. Day 1. After driving up from SF late on Friday, we had to rise early Saturday to go stand in line to get a backcountry permit. I miss the days when we just signed in at a trailhead and started hiking, but it's a reality. Numbers have to be limited in too many areas. We get our permit, and even after eating breakfast and finishing our packing, we are ready to hit the trail at something like 9 a.m. Yes, I'm making breakfast on the curb. With deer. And using a paper towel as a coffee filter. The trail to Pear Lake, our first camp and the only one that is a) below treeline and b) restricted, is crowded with dayhikers. That doesn't ruin the scenery, and people-watching can be a distraction from the hard work of carrying a first-day pack up 2000'. A prime feature of ...