Here is the Sierra National Forrest write up and info for the wilderness.
I was first introduced to this areas many years back as a young kid. One of my first backpacking trips was to Twin Lakes inside the wilderness area. Upon moving back to the central California area in 2008, I decided to get back into exploring the mountains and another overnight trip to Twin Lakes was in order.
June 17th 2008:
I was pretty nervous actually since I had never been in the mountains by myself nor gone backpacking in perhaps ten years. The drive alone up and over Kaiser Pass is pretty intimidating for someone unfamiliar with small mountain roads.
I made all the classic newbie mistakes. I'll itemize them for you here...
- Extremely late start from Fresno. Didn't start hiking until 3:30pm
- Untested equipment. My many years old boots feel apart within the first 500' of trail. Had to turn around and do the hike in tennis shoes.
- Unfamiliar with how to read a map nor understand that how trails might switch direction unannounced.
- Extremely heavy bag. For a single overnight trip, bag weighted 45 lbs.
- Out of shape, and underestimated the uphill section.
None the less, by 6:00pm I had hiked the 4 miles of mellow trail to arrive at Upper Twin Lake.
My first back country overnight in over ten years plus being by myself kept me unnerved for sleeping. Every noise from the bushes I thought was a bear. A full moon that night was pretty cool to watch reflecting on the lake.
The following morning, I awoke to find many other people who had hiked in for the day, From my campsite, I had an excellent view of Kaiser Peak (10,320') and decided that "one day" I was going to climb that mountain. I retraced by route out to the trail head and drove home back to Fresno, successfully completing my first overnight backpacking trip on over ten years.
July 28th 2008:
After my previous month trip to upper twin lake, it was now time to go back and further in to the wilderness area. This time I would take Kristine.
Our first night at camp was again at Upper Twin Lake (8,630'). My night was much more pleasant spending it with Kristine opposed to by myself last month! The following morning we packed up camp and hiked the additional few miles up to George Lake (9,100'). We spent the rest of day just hanging out since Kristine got altitude sickness with this being her first backpacking trip. On our third day we hiked all the way out to the trail head and rewarded ourselves with a big dinner that evening!
November 20th 2008 - My First Fall Ascent of Kaiser Peak
Before the season came to a close I wanted to climb Kaiser Peak. I had been thinking about it every since I saw it back in June when I camped at upper Twin Lake. The peak has a trail all the way to the top and actually continues along a vast loop in the wilderness area. My route would be a simple out and back from the closest trail head (Deer Creek Pack Station).
From the Dear Creek Pack Station (7,300') the counter clockwise portion of the Kaiser Peak loop trail climbs up the small Dear Creek drainage. There are some excellent views of Huntington Lake as well as China Peak.
At approximately the half way mark (millage and almost elevation gain) the trail wraps around the back side of College Rock (9,000'). From here the trail joins the Bear Creek drainage. For the first time in miles the trail flattens out for awhile and its crosses a few meadows in the Bear Creek.
Eventually, the trail begins to climb again to reach a saddle where you are greeted it a FALSE summit of Kaiser Peak. The actual summit is the high point behind the pines trees in the photo below.
The trail descends about a hundred feet from the saddle with Bear Creek to the low spot that drops down in to George Lake. Below is a cool shot looking across to the Banner Peak (12,942').
Looking down onto George lake. Kristine and I camped near that frozen inlet back in July.
The trail continues over the false summit and traverses over to the actual high point. Views of Jewel and Campfire Lakes.
At 5.3 miles from the trail head and 3,000' of climbing the trail tops out at Kaiser Peak. The loops continues down the ridge line west towards Nellie Lake. It would be another eight years before I would hike the whole loop.
April 22nd 2009 - My First Spring Ascent of Kaiser Peak
After a failed snowshoe attempt back in February (I made it to College Rock), I was eager to get out on the mountain again. This time, same plan as before. Dear Creek trail head with the Kaiser Loop counter clockwise to the summit.
The trail turned in to continuous compacted snow around College rock. Fortunately, it had a nice hard crust on it which was good for walking.
It was truly amazing to be up in the 'alpine' so to speak walking on all this snow. This was my first exposure to a little taste of mountaineering. I really enjoyed the cool weather with amazing views of the back country snowed in.
Pictured above is looking back into the Bear Creek drainage (the real Bear Creek) and Recess Peak. I did a 4 day backpacking loop around all those peak in the summer of 2015.
It took 6 hours to climb the 5.3 miles with half of it on snow. I recall this day and being one of my more finer in the Sierras, continuing to just wet my appetite for more.
March 2nd 2010 - My First Trip with Russ
Although I had never flown with Russ we both knew of each other and wanted to go out hiking. I suggested a winter accent of Kaiser Peak and he was on board. I had again tried for the 2nd time back in February and make it the the meadow in Bear Creek before turning around. I came to the conclusion that a day hike of Kaiser was impossible and thus needed to do a two day trip.
I'll be honest, taking my two wheeled Honda Civic back that road wasn't the best idea. I got it almost stuck several times. I had to put chains on just to get any traction to get out of there on the way home. The weather forecast was suppose to be calling for somewhat of a break in the snow, but as we found out that wasn't even close to accurate. The first few hours of the hike had nice cool weather and partly cloudy skies, however as the morning rolled on the clouds rolled in.
We took turn breaking steep trail. Not only was it presently snowing but the powder from previous storms was pretty deep. The added weight of out heavy backpacks compounded the problem. This was extremely exhausting work.
(This is my typical "looks like i'm gonna hurl" pose)
We pressed on in the deteriorating weather. Eventually the wind picked up and visibility started to get pretty poor. Our original plan had been to camp at the Bear Creek meadow flat area. We would spend the night and then summit the next day. With all that said we had made extremely good time. We arrived to the meadow area by 1:00pm in the afternoon. We elected to keep trudging along in the snow and powder to see how far we could make it.
We topped out on the saddle (10,000') a little after 2:00pm to a howling wind and sideways wet snow. That was enough for today. We turned around and hiked all the way out the the car.
A couple of interesting lessons were learned for me on that trip. The condition of the snow was the KEY factor to climbing Kaiser in the winter. With powder the pace was grueling and exhausting. None the less, this was one of the more memorable days in the Sierra and also lead to Russ and spending a lot of time in the back county together.
September 2nd 2010 - My First Summer Accent of Kaiser Peak
This was pretty straight forward, dry nice trail all the way to the top. I had attempted another spring climb in May after Russ and I failed winter trip, but was thwarted by really high winds on the ridge line.
Spring of 2011:
The winter of 2010/11 was one of the heaviest in the Sierras in history. Here are some cool shots of a trip I made in that April.
(Highway at Huntington Lake)
(Outlet in to the lake)
May 2012:
Russ and I went back for a spring summit. This was a training hike for our upcoming trip to the Palisades.
March 4th 2013 - My First Winter Accent of Kaiser Peak
I get it... the technicalities between Winter and Spring is simply a date on the calendar. One can have full blown winter condition in the Spring and vise versa. With that said, this accent falls within winter.
I had attempted Kaiser Peak in the "winter season" several times before. In fact...
- January 27th 2009
- January 10th 2010
- March 2nd 2010
2013 was yet again another dry year. In fact, even worse than 2012. I wasn't sure what conditions I would come across on my trip, so I plan for full winter expedition just in case. This time I would get an afternoon start, camp at the meadow, summit in the morning.
I found mostly dry and hot condition below 9,000'. I had never seen the mountain that dry so early. I really started to second guess my 4 season tent and plastic double boots.
Because of the lack of snow, I kept a pretty good pace up the hill. In fact, I decided to continue past the meadow and camp on the saddle at 10,000'. It was actually a really cool site. I had a great sunset overlooking the San Joaquin Valley.
I believe this was also my first "winter" use of the "winter mountaineering tent". It was defiantly a vast overkill for what I needed that night.
My hike up to the summit that morning was very nice. Not too cold, and no powder to speak of just consolidated snow. So it took 4 attempts, but I now summited Kaiser Peak in the winter and now all 4 seasons. Good times!
2013 - 2015:
I would use Kaiser Peak as a training ground many more times to get myself in shape or just get out of town for a hike. With the summit over 10,000', you're rewarded with a really great views of the entire back country of the Sierras. For some reason that view never gets old. In 2015, I ran most of the trail, making for a 5 hour round trip.
June 9th 2016:
A little back story here. I have many pairs of mountain shoes. To summarize them for you...
- Salomon 3D Ultras trail shoes
- La Sportiva Trango boots
- Scarpa Inverno plastic boots
- Five Ten Camp 4 approach shoes
- La Sportiva Mythos rock shoes
- Five Ten techy gym shoes
You see, I moved past 'hiking boots' a few years back. Heavy, hot, and clunky, so I decided to do the switch. Of course, you might ask, "What about ankle support?" I tried a La Sportiva model out when I did the Rae Lakes Loop in 2011. I found that my left ankle begins to pronate as I begin to tire. Not an issue for normal days, but on big mileage days I was suffering ankle pain. Russ vouched that the Salomon 3D Ultras never had any issues due the the wide flared out base. They're marketed as a "Trail running" shoes, but in all honestly, even they are clunky and too wide for good running. However, they are perfect for trail hiking shoes! I've logged years and probably close to 500 miles in these shoes including the John Muir Trail.
In 2016, I decided to get a new pair of shoes since the Ultras were starting to fall apart. Unfortunately, Salomon doesn't make them anymore. They merged a few models into to the "3D XA Pro" model. I ordered up pair and noted that the wide flared base had been removed. The lacing system looked cleaner. In all honestly, I bet these shoes would actually run better than the Ultras which is what they are marketed for.
My first test drive in the new 3D XA Pro's was an eight miles run around Redwood Canyon. This is GOT TO BE THE BEST TRAIL RUN IN THE WORLD. Seriously. They held up pretty good, just a minor blister, but that was breaking them in. Next up, a 'big mileage day'.
My usual stopping ground is just a run up to Kaiser Peak, but I was wanting some more mileage and yet not an overnight trip. For the first time in eight years of going into the Kaiser Wilderness, I would hike the complete Kaiser Peak Loop.
Photo Credit: Bob Burd. This is the loop via the Mary's Meadow Cutoff (which I did as well). His arrows indicates he went counter clock wise while I went clock wise.
Photo Credit: Bob Burd. This is an elevation profile of the loop. Again, since I went clock wise first my profile is read right to left.
I started my day like usual at the Deer Creek Pack Station trail head. However, instead of going right and up the hill like I had done many times before, I went left and followed the trail west thought the forest behind the cabins on Huntington Lake.
After a few miles of mellow trail and creek crossings (Not so mellow this time of year!) I took the Mary's meadow cutoff. This cutoff saves unnecessary travel from this direction along the loop.
An hour an a half after starting I rejoined the Kaiser Peak loop trail and began the hike up the hill past the turnoff to Nellie Lake.
I reached the western junction of the Kaiser Loop Trail and Hidden Lake trail, where I paused for lunch. At this point the trail follows the ridge line for the most part climbing altitude towards Kaiser Peak. There was a brief (about a mile) of trail (lost in snow) that is on the north side of the ridge which is pictured below.
For the first time, I was able to get a view of this mountain I've been to so many times before but from the West.
5 and a half hours after starting, I reached the summit once again under perfect conditions! My hike down the hill to the trail head, was pretty uneventful which the exception of two things. First, my left ankle began to hurt as the miles wore on. By the time I got back to my car I knew these new shoes would not do! The second was, I got attacked by California quail. You know, the state bird! To be fair, I rapidly stumbled upon it's nest. I've been taking a cross country shortcut for years down the hill around the college rock area. In fact, I've gotten pretty good at almost running this 500' downhill section. After the initial startle of both of us running in to each other, I didn't think too much of it and tried to go around the bird. It rose it tail and began to run after me yelling. I kid you not... it ran after me for over 100' feet! I couldn't run fast enough to get away from this thing. Pictured below is it walking back to its next I suppose. After years and years of being asking, "What about bears and mountain lions" and really worrying about rattlesnakes..... it was a QUAIL that attacked me!
This 13.5 mile loop took me about me about 7 hours to complete. Unfortunately, the shoes did not pass the test and I've since returned them of another model (XA Wings) which have yet to be tested.
There is still plenty of open territory to explore in this wilderness for me. But the amazing access and beauty of the Kaiser Wilderness will bring me back to the same old trials for years more.
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