With my new job I have to submit vacation requests at least one month in advance. This is a problem for me sometimes. I usually like to plan my backpacking trips within a week or two of the date. I do not know what the weather will be like a month or more in advance. For October trips, there could be rain. There could be snow. There could be fires. Just book it and hope for the best, I guess. One thing that I certainly did NOT expect to be an issue in October: HEAT! It was over 100 degrees in the valley in the first days of October and it still has not let up. This has literally been the summer of hell in California. At least it would not be 100 degrees in the mountains but it was going to be much hotter than I would like and no doubt the bugs would be an issue as well.
Where was my planned trip going to be? The infamous Rae Lakes loop in Kings Canyon National Park. 5 days. 45 miles. 8000 ft. of elevation gain. Majestic mountains. Spectacular lakes. Magnificent scenery. Multitudes of waterfalls. Was this another bucket list hike for me? I suppose it was. It was not at the top of my list but it has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time now.
I got zero sleep the night before the trip. Maybe a half hour at most. I was up at 2AM. Why so early? A couple reasons but mainly because I wanted to try to get to the first waterfall, Mist Falls, in good lighting conditions. I already have decent photos of this waterfall so I didn’t really need to do this but it’s always nice to re-visit waterfalls and get better photos. It is a very long and tiring drive to the trailhead. I forgot just how long and slow the drive is to Cedar Grove in Kings Canyon NP. It is excruciating. I don’t really want to ever do that drive again but who knows.
I arrived on time at the trailhead (7:30AM) and started the hike. It is 4 miles to Mist Falls. Once you start the last bit up to the waterfall the gnats came out in force. All because of that darn heat this summer. They should be gone by October. How did they compare to Tehipite? Tehipite is the hellish standard in gnat comparison so if Tehipite was a 10 in nastiness then I would say Rae Lakes was an 8. They were bad but thankfully I would not have them for the entire hike. And I had my head net of course.
After Mist Falls I continued on to Upper Paradise Valley. The hike is very difficult due to all the rock steps they built into the trail. Why did they have to do this? Pretty much the entire Rae Lakes loop is horribly built with all these rock steps. It is mostly not necessary and it makes the hike at least five times more difficult. Every single one you have to lift your leg up higher than you should and some of the steps were huge. It was so incredibly tiring. Argh.
I camped the first night at 7000 ft. elevation after hiking 9.0 miles and 1900 ft. elevation gain thus far. The gnats were still out at this elevation but praise the Lord there was a breeze in the afternoon and the bugs left me alone. Until the evening when the breeze stopped but I was going to bed early anyway.
