Leon Turnbull Photography

This was my fifth and last and biggest backpacking trip of the spring. I had hoped to get in six trips but that was a bit over zealous of me, especially with my injured feet. Five trips is a huge success in my view.

This would be a 6 day backpacking trip on the High Sierra Trail in Sequoia National Park. Six days is the longest backpacking I have ever done thus far (my previous longest was 5 days). I would not be hiking the entire High Sierra Trail. I have no interest in doing that (at least not right now). My interest is in doing a section of the trail to see ALL the waterfalls in that section. I would not be able to see all these waterfalls if I was hiking the entire trail. I saw 11 waterfalls in the 6 days.

I arrived at the Giant Forest Museum in Sequoia National Park to get my permit at a good early time. There were three people ahead of me. One of them had an invalid permit (due to his own mistake). The ranger was a nice guy and was trying to get him a valid permit but it took 45 minutes! I appreciate him being nice but he should have made the guy wait until the others behind him in line could get their permits (there were 2 others behind me also). This basically delayed me an hour in starting my hike.

Well, it was not really a big deal because I was only planning to hike about 6 miles to Mehrten Creek. I arrived at Mehrten Creek about noon and ate my lunch. My plan was to camp here and see the two waterfalls in the evening. However, Mehrten Creek was essentially dry. I was surprised and disappointed. I know we are in a drought this year but it is only early June. I was not expecting much but the creek should have still had decent flow. How is this going to fare for the rest of the waterfalls on my trip? It was not worth photographing the Mehrten Creek waterfalls at all so I decided to push on to Nine Mile Creek. This would make my hike for the second day a bit shorter. Nine Mile Creek is actually at the 10 mile mark, not the 9 mile mark. I found that the park trail signs were always off the actual mileage. They said it was only 5.2 miles to Mehrten (one example) but according to my GPS it was 6.6 miles.

Along the way to “Nine Mile Creek” I came across a rattlesnake right on the trail. I almost stepped on it. Unfortunately, that was too close for the snake’s comfort and it started rattling at me in earnest. Step back! Step back! Ok! Ok! Thankfully, it moved off the trail and into the bushes.

I arrived at Nine Mile and set up camp. It was a big buggy with gnats and mosquitoes so I made a fire to keep them away. Camp fires are allowed here (but not above 9000 ft.). The mosquitoes were not “horrible”  (we will have more discussion about mosquitoes later), but even a few is bad so a fire works well to keep them all away. A couple other hikers arrived at the camp a bit later, one going back to the trailhead and one going the same direction as me (he was doing the entire HST). Also, a group of girls passed on by and another couple as well. So that means I expected to see about 3 other groups at Hamilton Lake the next day. There are not a lot of great camping spots there so my plan was to get up early and hike the remaining 7 miles to the lake, beating the other groups there and obtaining the best spot at the lake. That was the plan.

I got in my tent early and watched a movie. At dusk a large group of deer passed through my campsite. I could see them from inside my tent. They could see me as well. The look on their faces was funny when they saw me peering at them through the tent mesh: “Why is he looking at us?”.

I did not see any waterfalls on the first day so this photograph is from the second day: Lower Hamilton Lake Falls. I really really really wanted to get down to the bottom of this falls. I tried about 3 different ways but it was a NO GO. It was just way too cliffy and steep and brushy. No wonder I have never seen any photo of this waterfall from the bottom before. Nevertheless, it is not a bad view from the trail. Good night day 1.