Rae Lakes Loop 08/17/19

The Rae Lakes loop is a route that I've been looking to complete since I found out about it around 4 years ago. It is ~64km long, and has around 2400m of climbing through the loop. The huge majority of that elevation is in the first 2/5ths of the loop on the climb up to Glen Pass through Bubbs Creek.

The general consensus seems to be that the loop is better hiked clockwise, and run counterclockwise. As I was going to be running it, I agree and definitely prefer to get all the elevation over with as fast as possible and have gentler slopes to run down.

The route:

I started the day at 6:45 and the plan was to be at Glen Pass, which was the high point of the route at ~3500m, in 4-5 hours. Glen Pass was ~26km in so worst case was only slightly faster than hiking pace for me at ~5km/hr.

Looking down Kings Canyon from the ascent into Bubbs Creek

The Sphinx 

Bubbs Creek drainage in the early morning light

Charlotte Dome peaking through the trees

Bubbs creek was a spectacular valley. It is a glacial cut valley with sheer faces lining the north side of the valley. Every once in a while there was a glimpse through the forest at the faces.

Bubbs Creek Wall towering through the trees

Cool section of forest with a lot of fern ground cover

Eventually the trail came to Juction Meadow, where it started to climb more sharply again up to Vidette meadow, and again up into the Charlotte lake basin.

Getting a view backwards when popping out in a meadow

West and East Vidette

Sandy basin at the Charlotte lake juction

Charlotte Lake

From the Charlotte drainage, it was a traverse around then a final steep push up to Glen Pass.

A very unusually coloured blue lake. It wasn't like any of the others around it, and it wasn't glacial silts?

Looking south from Glen Pass

There was a bunch of JMT people hanging out at the summit. I chatted with them and made them all jealous of the day hike pizza I dragged in with me :)

Rae Lakes basin from Glen Pass

Further down into basin

Upper Rae Lake

While in the Rae lakes basin, I heard that the 60 Lakes basin in behind is even nicer, but I didn't have the energy to do that on this outing... another time.

Middle Rae lake and Fin Dome

Sub-alpine trail

Mt Cotter behind the basin

Approaching Window and Pyramid Peaks

For the couple kilometers the trail approached Window and Pyramid Peaks head on... photos don't do anything close to justice. I also may have a bit of a granite bias, but...

One at a time on this bridge, and they aren't joking. I felt like I was going to oscillate myself off

The lower slopes of Window... Castle Domes

Looking backwards at Castle Meadows

A very smooth section of trail

Bridge was out at Upper Paradise

I knew the bridge was out at Upper Paradise beforehand as it is all over the NPS website, but it was at this point I got to check the condition of my blisters, and they did not appreciate the cold water! Once I got across the river, it really felt like the day was over to me, as Paradise Valley is for the most part a cruise-y valley only 15km to the trailhead back at Roads End.

Walked across the river here

Looking down Paradise Valley

I felt pretty good at the end of the day. My goal was 10-11 hours to the finish, and I got there in 10:15. Water was pretty easy all day, I was filling up my filter bottle almost every time I had the chance, and there was really no time when there was too long a break between streams.

Kaiser Loop 08/11/19

The route:

For our second day in the area we decided to do the Kaiser Loop. It's a 25km loop which takes starts from just above Huntington Lake, and climbs up to Kaiser Peak, and then back down around a different way.

Nice trails in the forest down low

The trail climbs pretty fast, and has some great views on the way up

The view from the alpine line on Kaiser. The green ground cover made it very pretty!

Purple flowers in the sand!

It was an 8.5k hike to the peak from the car, with about 1000m of elevation gain. Trail was smooth and very easy to follow. It became a bit less smooth once over the summit, as the full loop appears to see much less traffic, but we still had no problems following the trail.

The View from the top looking north-east. 

The view looking south-east. No snow on the trail, but still a couple of patches along the ridgeline.

Line Creek Lake

Bonnie Lake.

Dead tree standing tall

The last of the alpine/sub-alpine lupin fields before heading back into the trees for the remainder of the hike

We weren't sure how well used the Mary's meadow trail was, so we ended up turning a little early onto a horse trail. It sorta dissolved into a meadow and we went back to the main trail and found the marked turnoff a kilometer or so later.

Mary's Meadow trail

On the remaining bit of the loop trail, we both got stung by the same wasp. I got stung, yelled wasp! and then Caitlin got stung. We both got stung in almost the same spot on the calf.

Elapsed loop time including some stops and sidetracking was 5:30. Probably would've been 15 mins shorter if we had taken the correct turns :/

Kaiser Circumnavigation 08/10/19

With the scouting I did for the previous trip into this region (Mt Julius Caesar), I found a couple other interesting routes for both hiking and biking. After visiting, I was definitely interested in going back to see more of the area. The only weekend which worked for both of us until the end of september was the weekend after I was just there, so off we went!

The route:

For the bike ride here we started just above Big Creek, which appears to be a SCE employee town for the many hydro projects they have in this area. It started off with some stiff  >10% grades up to Huntington Lake.

View towards Big Creek on a hairpin corner

A wonderful steep road

Huntington Lake... lot of fishing and big trucks

Outflow of the water diverted from the high sierra

Kaiser Pass road

Kaiser pass road abruptly stops, turning from a high speed 2 lane highway into a 1.5 lane tight and twisty road right here.

Summit!

Really awesome road to bike, not as fun in a car.

After descending a bit off the summit, we turned off onto a gravel road which would take us down to Stump Springs Road, about 900m vertical below. The road initially started off a bit rough, as the top bit sees a bit more traffic, and the grades might be a bit steeper. Down low, the road was pretty amazing and smooth, and an endless, fun, descent.

A very lost cow

Views for days on the descent from Kaiser pass

More dirt descending

Stump Springs Road is a rolling paved road which takes us all the way back to Big Creek. There was lots of signs of forest fire activity in the past 10 or so years along the northern slopes of Kaiser.

Stump Springs Road

Views down to mammoth pool and shuteye

Road was closed for repairs... lots of room for bikes :)

Drainage into the central valley

After we finished our ride we drove to Shaver Lake to hangout, swim and cook dinner. It was the perfect way to cap off the day... the water was so nice!

Swimming and making dinner at the lake afterwards