The Rae Lakes Loop Days Five and Six The most scenic parts of the hike, and the hardest parts, were now behind us. By we were by no means finished. In fact, we had still had more than a third of the hike in front of us. Fortunately, it was very nearly all downhill. One of the pleasant things about […]
Alto Sierra
The Rae Lakes Loop: Day Four (The Big One) Dawn could not come soon enough. Part of the reason we had pushed so far along on the third day was so we could get as close to Glen Pass as possible, so that we could tackle it as early in the day as possible. Our concern had been the unseasonable […]
The Rae Lakes and the Soggy Night From Hell
The Rae Lakes Loop, Day 3 The weather forecast we got from the bulletin board outside the backcountry center at Road’s End on the first day proved to be entirely accurate. It had predicted rain on the morning of the third day of the trip lasting all day. In fact, even before the sun set on the evening of the […]
Road’s End
The Rae Lakes Loop Days 1 and 2 ***The following is Brian’s account of his hike of the Rae Lakes Loop with a group of close friends in 2014. Please consult the NPS website for details as many things might have changed since he hiked. With darkness approaching I found myself clutching to my sleeping pad inside my now […]
To Paradise and Beyond
The Rae Lakes Loop, Kings Canyon NP One of the best hikes in the United States is the Rae Lakes Loop in the Sierra Nevada. This challenging backpacking trip requires five or more days to complete and takes hikers through some of the best – and most remote – country the High Sierra has to offer. For much of its […]
Giant Adventures
The Giant Forest, Sequoia National Park Having safely established our base in King’s Canyon National Park, it was time to go see the other and more heavily visited side of this fabulous complex of protected lands…that being Sequoia National Park. Sequoia is smaller than Kings Canyon, but owing to the fact that it’s most singular landmarks lie close to the […]
The Canyon of Earthly Delights
Kings Canyon National Park In 2009 we returned to California for a second helping of vacation. Our time spent along the Big Sur Coast had left us more than suitably impressed enough to go back for seconds. Brian especially wanted to see John Muir’s celebrated range of light, the Sierra Nevada. On our first trip, which had been in winter, […]
The King of Canyons
Back in November we featured Big Bend National Park in Texas, which we nominated as the most underrated National Park in the entire system. It’s big, it’s wild, it’s scenic, and compared to other parks, it’s seldom visited. However, there are many other very underrated National Parks. In fact, we can easily make a case that while Big Bend is […]
The Incredible Shrinking (and Late Arriving Fall) Color Show
Higher Temps and More Rain, Humidity Mean a Later Onset of Autumn How did this year’s fall color display in the Appalachian Mountains compare with those of years past? The short answer, at least when we were there to experience it, is…not that well. For the second straight year, fall colors came late to the Carolinas. Another year of record […]
Where Was Our First Hike Together? Believe It Or Not…
Hemmed in Hollow, Arkansas Yep, dang ole’ Arkansas *This post continues the mining of old photographs taken in the pre-digital era. We therefore apologize in advance that the quality of the pictures is not quite up to the usual standards. Also note that our description of the falls was accurate for the time we visited, which was in 2005, things […]