7/3/2023
Section: Milepost 705.8 to 723.0
Distance: 17.95 Miles
Moving Time: 08:14 hrs
Elevation Gain: 4,705 ft
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It amazed me all day how much the scenery changes along the first stage out of Kennedy Meadows. Literally, just two days before, we were in the desert and very much so as we left during a heat wave and in just this one day we are delivered to 10,000 feet in the Sierra and the difference is night and day. Amanda and I have hiked all over the world and almost nothing is as dramatic as the change in scenery we experienced today.
The stage today leaves the Kennedy Meadows campground in the Inyo National forest, heading due north along the east bank of the South Fork of the Kern River. Finally, water is no longer an issue - there’s plenty of it. The trail crosses into the South Sierra Wilderness and crosses the Kern River at mile marker 707.8 before climbing up into a small river valley east of Crag Peak. From the saddle at the top of the valley, the trail crosses Crag Creek and begins following it through Clover Meadow maintaining a large ridge to the east. This ridge necks down with an adjacent ridge on the west side and the trail clamours up through another saddle before opening grandly on a large meadow called Beck Meadow. The PCT then edges around a small hill to the east of Beck Meadow and meanders down to rejoin the South Fork of the Kern River where a bridge crosses over. The last part of the stage is a brutal climb up into Cow Canyon following along a small unnamed peak until it leaves the canyon at 10,000 feet, offering several nice camp sites.
Amanda and I were up at around 5 am this morning. We had slept well, but been woken up briefly by a group of Boy Scouts who went by quite noisely at midnight for some reason. We packed up and ate breakfast - trying to eat through the few things we weren’t stoked about and saving our favorites for later in the trip. After breakfast we headed out. We stopped to sign the trail register and say hi to UK Sam (Trip Hazard) who had arrived in the night and was packing his tent up. We asked him about Markus and Izzy and he said the last thing he saw before leaving the General Store was Markus with a 6-pack so, we’ll see how that goes.
We started on the trail, which wove peacefully through pine trees on a solid trail. Everyone has said the trail gets vastly more logical and nice in the Sierra so we are excited to see it. It was fine in the desert but supposedly it’s supposed to get even better. We hiked on and soon UK Sam passed us. We are loaded down with 10 days of food and snow shoes so our moving average is going to be slow for a few days. We’ll make it up on them on the snowfields and when we don’t have to do the awful exit to Lone Pine.
Further down the trail we came to a beautiful bridge over ther Kern River and took some pictures on it. Shortly after, we came across the boy scouts now heading back towards Kennedy Meadows - must have been some kind of night hike. We are still seeing lizards on the path but, sad to say, we have probably seen our last Regal Lizards - goodbye little dudes, you will be missed. After the Boy Scout encounter we started our first climb of the day into Beck Meadow and a short time later the scene opened on a beautiful moderate meadow which we began climbing into. About half way up and out of the meadow we stopped and pulled water. Several leaks have appeared in the squeeze bag but Amanda and I have agreed that, if the bag catastrophically fails we are just going to drink out of the streams. Sean and many others have said they have been doing it in the desert without any issue and that the Sierra is probably the cleanest section on the whole trail. We will see, filtering is such a pain but so is shitting your pants. After filtering, some snacks and a bag of Sour Patch kids we made our way up the trail, eventually cresting out of Beck Meadow and at the top looked down on a much more expansive meadow - Clover Meadow. We descended down and then meandered around a low hill in the middle of the meadow before the trail turned east briefly and made it’s way back down to the Kern River where another great bridge was located.
We took lunch at the bridge watching a bunch of swallows ride the wind below the bridge briefly ascending to feed young before going back out of get more food. “I wish I could have a personal Swallow to eat all the bugs that have been flying around me,” I said to Amanda. We sat and took advantage of a very flat, very level rock. Getting out of the backpacks is a chore now with all the crap and weight we have, but we help each other out and that makes it easier. We ate and talked about how exciting it is to be in the Sierra. I eventually walked down to get water and Izzy (Butter) showed up. We gave a little cheer and she sat and immediately swapped to sandals so she could sit on a rock in the river. We asked about Markus and she said he was somewhere behind but had had a bit of a late night and was probably going to be a while. We talked for a little bit and then Amanda and I said adieu, heading out over the bridge.
After crossing the Kern we had around 5 miles and 2200 feet to climb. The nice part was that, now, the elevation and the cooling of last week’s heat wave made for mild temperatures to hike in. We made our way towards Cow Canyon, which is more of a tiny river valley than an actually canyon, and at the mouth were relieved to find plentiful shade along the river. The climbing transitioned from peaceful, to moderate, to difficult, to an all out assault over the course of about 2 hours. At the end we were dilvered into an alpine meadow with many rocks that looked extremely Sierra’ish and Amanda saw our first Marmot!! It looked like a chubby, miniature golden retriever and squinted at us with a bucked-tooth grin before running off.
We climbed up to a set of campsites and Amanda said she was done for the day. I ran ahead to take a look at the second camp site, which was much better, and convinced her to climb a little more for great views out on the mountains.
At the top, Amanda passed out in the sun and I did my typical exercises then went and got water - stumbling on a few more marmots. The breeze was keeping the bugs down which i was very happy for and at this altitude we decided on cowboy camping. I began making dinner, excited to eat through our food weight and a section hiker came through. I didn’t catch his name but he was from New Jersey. A friend had dropped him off at Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead so he could escape the heat of the desert but he had been just as devastated by the snow. “I’m done,” he said sheepishly “think i am going to go home and get some hikes done in the White’s (mountains) - but those snowshoes are going to be really helpful up there” before pulling out his phone and showing me the snow. It didn’t look terrible but the suncups were going to be a menace. Just as i was talking and enjoying my dinner Izzy and Markus came by. They didn’t want to interrupt but said they were going up to catch Sam and continued on saying they would see us tomorrow. Just after them, a 4th guy showed up and started looking around. The guy from New Jersey departed wishing us luck and we talked with the 4th guy. Amanda put it together pretty quick that this was Wildfire, whose wife had given us beers and food our first day out of Tehachapi. I got up to shake his hand and say how awesome his wife had been for trail-angeling. We talked a while more than Amanda and I started our wind-down activities, eventually getting in our sleeping bags. Tomorrow was going to be another big day and the day after that, the adventure was really going to begin.
