2 out of 6 waterfalls. Epic fail. Due to circumstances beyond my control I could only see two of the six waterfalls I had planned to see. I was probably lucky to even see two. I will get to all the things that went wrong in this post and some in the next post.
This was supposed to be my big fall October trip that I do every year where I see many waterfalls. Initially I had planned a 9 day trip but unfortunately had to cut it back to 4 days instead. I had an ambitious schedule but I should be able to see at least 6 waterfalls. Huh.
I only gained 2.5 pounds over the summer. Not too bad at all. But I knew I had a big hike upcoming. For the prior six weeks I worked out extremely hard and lost that 2.5 pounds plus an additional 2 pounds. I feel as though I am in the best shape I have been in 24 years. My wife thinks I am too thin. I guess she likes a chubby man, but what she does not understand is that 10 pounds makes a huge difference in backpacking. I feel I am ready to tackle anything now. I remember many years ago when I was out of shape, my friend and I went up Brokeoff mountain for sunset. He had along a couple young friends in their early 30’s who zipped up the mountain like there was no tomorrow. I made it up to the top but there was no way I could come even remotely close to keeping up with those young’uns. Now 15 years later, although I am much older, I feel like I could actually keep up with them. Or very close anyway. And this trip would be a tough one: 17 miles. 11 miles (with big elevation gain). 12 miles (with big elevation gain). 16 miles. Something like that.
It is a long drive to the trailhead at Courtright Reservoir. I arrived at 9 and started my hike at 9:15am. A bit later than I hoped but it was all right. There were no bugs at the trailhead but I decided to take my bug spray anyway. I would not regret this decision. (I almost left it). There are not supposed to be mosquitoes in October. That is why I like hiking at this time of year.
It is a 17 mile hike to my first campsite on the North Fork Kings River. It is a gentle climb with 1600 ft. elevation gain. The trail is mostly very good. I saw just one couple on the first day and one guy on the last day. No one else for the entire 4 days. I felt good on the hike. The last hour with the final uphill push to the camp was a bit rough (fatigued) but otherwise it was very good. I arrived at camp ahead of schedule even with the late start.
There were mosquitoes. Strike one. How the heck can there be mosquitoes? There was a winter storm last weekend. There was a hard freeze here at this elevation. All the mosquitoes should be good and dead. There should not be any! It was actually very frustrating to me. I hike at this time of year because it is very pleasant and there are no bugs. It is not pleasant when there are mosquitoes. They are so annoying. Argh!
I went down to see the waterfall. Strike two. It was very disappointing. The North Fork Kings River had a good flow, but this particular waterfall needs a lot of water to look decent. It probably needs to be at flood stage for it to look very good. At medium flows it is not even worth taking a photo. I would not really even call it a waterfall. I guess I should come back at high flow and see if it makes a difference. I’m not sure I will ever be back but who knows.
Now for the other things that went wrong on this trip … let’s see … my watch strap broke. Not a problem. One of the zippers on my day pack broke. Not a problem. My first aid scissors broke. A bit of a problem but I was able to use my knife to cut the moleskin. My sleeping pad failed. A huge problem. It had a very small leak and I could not figure out where it was coming from. The ground was too cold (and hard) to sleep on without a pad. This was a major issue. I put my backpack down and slept on it. This was very uncomfortable as you can imagine but I actually slept quite well the first two nights. The third night not quite so well. I should have just gone home after the first night and I thought about it considerably but I decided to continue on. I really really really did not want to go home. That would have been horrible. Instead, I would just suck it up and sleep on my backpack each night.
There was one other major thing that went wrong. We’ll talk about it in the next post.
In the morning I got up early, had my breakfast and coffee, and continued up the trail. Almost immediately the trail deteriorated. Up to this point it was great, very easy to follow, smooth, no blowdowns. Now it was very difficult. There were a ton of blown down trees to negotiate. The trail was very indistinguishable at times. I persevered and it got a bit better up to Portal Lake. It took longer than I hoped getting this far.
From here on there was no trail. The rest of the hike over Mantle Pass and down into Blue Canyon would be cross country but I was not expecting it to be too difficult. It was horribly difficult. It is 1000 ft. up to the top of the pass. Straight up. This part was tough but not unexpectedly tough. Does that make sense? I knew it would be a tough climb but it was straight forward. The pass is just under 11,000 ft. elevation. (about 10, 970 ft.). Once over the pass you have now crossed into Kings Canyon National Park. There are no signs. The other side down into Blue Canyon was absolutely brutal beyond brutal. I actually thought it would be a fairly easy descent. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The descent is about 900 ft. off trail and then another 800 ft. on trail. It was extremely rocky the entire way. The rocks were big. It was very tricky walking on them. It was tremendously slow going. It was maddening. Was it ever going to end?
I finally made it down to Blue Canyon Creek and found a campsite. It was quite late now. Much later than planned. I had wanted to go down to the waterfalls in the evening but I did not have time. I only had time to go down to the upper falls (shown here). Upper Blue Canyon Falls is a gorgeous 40 ft. drop. It was a lovely evening at Blue Canyon in Kings Canyon National Park (except for the mosquitoes).
