The Circle of Solitude (sort of)— SEKI NP — Late-July/Early-August 2019
The Circle of Solitude is a large 70ish mile loop in Kings Canyon National Park. It touches the northern tip of Sequoia for a bit, but mostly it’s a trip from deep inside the canyon of the Kings River up to the Sierra Crest and then back down again. On this trip, I was joined by one of my best friends of over 15 years, and this was to be his first real backpacking trip. We had originally planned to do the much larger Big Seki Loop counter-clockwise over the course of 10 days, but due to — I’ll be frank — Arash’s lack of physical fitness, it became clear that there was no way we were going to make the full loop at the rate we were going (and if we did, it would have been miserable for him and thus me). Regardless of the shortened trip, it was still outrageously beautiful in the way only SEKI (Sequoia & Kings Canyon) can be. Again, I am convinced that there is no better hiking possible than deep in the SEKI backcountry. The landscapes are so grand, the flowers so bright and colorful, the grey granite spires so tall and pointy…there simply cannot be better. And how blessed I am to have this wonderland less than 5 hours from my home. This hike was done at peak wild-flower season after the very wet 2019 winter, which made the canyons and creeks gushing with water and dotted with beautiful hues of reds, oranges, yellows, and purples. We also made a small adjustment to the normal route, choosing to march up the Kern River close to its headwaters before turning east and then north over Forrester Pass.
Day 1: Roads End to a meadow just past Avalanche Pass. Distance: About 10 miles. Elevation Gain: 5432' (lol), Elevation Lost: 1162'
Whichever way you slice it, climbing out of Zumwault Meadows (out of the mouth of Kings River canyon from Roads End) sucks. You have 4 options, and they range from “literally never again” to “need at least two years before we do that again”. Roads end to Avalanche Pass is somewhere around “why do this to yourself?” and even though I had reiterated to myself and Arash that Day 1 would be the worst day of our hike, it’s impossible to fathom and train for a mile in elevation gain while living close to sea level. Nonetheless, at the very least, it’s a semi-nice hike with cool trail engineering as it’s literally blasted out of the granite and it features some beautiful views of the Sphinx crest, named by none other than John Muir.
After about 45 minutes of leaving Roads End, the trail begins to climb and essentially doesn’t stop for the rest of the day. We weren’t acclimated so we struggled, and since we didn’t get on the trail until about 10am, we didn’t get to Avalanche Pass until about 530pm i believe. Thats essentially non-stop climbing all day.The pass teases you forever and seems to never summit, but eventually we made it and i promised Arash we’d start looking for camp. At this point the plan was still Big Seki Loop and I wanted to make it to at least 12 miles, so we were short on mileage but there was not much I could do about it. We found a nice meadow next to a small creek and setup camp. It was Arash’s first night in the wilderness nonetheless, and we enjoyed getting off our feet and having a few swigs of mezcal.
A small note to add as to why this day was a bit more difficult than it had to be was that this was to be the last day of a 4 day on-and-off summer rain storm. It showered lightly from about 2pm on and off for about 2 hours, but thankfully this would be the last rain we’d see for the entire journey.
Day 2: Just past Avalanche Pass to where the Colby Pass trail crosses the Roaring River. Distance: About 12 miles. Elevation Gain: ~2500', Elevation Lost: ~2300'
As expected, we woke up sore but it was a beautiful day and we knew we had a lot of trail in front of us. We got a relatively early start, and continued our decent down into Cloud Canyon, which was a place I was quite excited to see. This day was already starkly different from Day 1 given the fact that we were now following the Roaring River, and it became immediately clear that we were in for a treat with respect to the flowers. All throughout Cloud Canyon — and even when we started our ascent up the Colby Pass trail — there were carpets of beautiful flowers, big and small.
We were finally experiencing some solitude as well, not seeing anyone outside of a few trailworkers all day. By about 2:45pm, we had stopped for lunch break and also taking advantage of our first opportunity to take a quick river-bath in a small log dam amongst the very swift Roaring River. In retrospect, this was probably the least visually appealing day for me, since ascending up Cloud Canyon puts you into the trees, rarely giving you a glimpse at the beautiful glacial-carved valley that we were walking through. I made a note that I would like to eventually see Cloud Canyon from it’s head going northbound (opposite direction we were going now), coming from the Kings-Kaweah divide, but that was for another time.
The one thing that did stop both Arash and I in our tracks on this day — and frankly was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen in my life — was our first glimpse of Big Wet Meadow. It was a perfectly clear day and we couldn’t believe our eyes: huge canyon walls, massive open field of grass, and at the way end, a perfectly unobstructed view of the Whaleback. Arash and I took it in for a few minutes, took some photos, and did not stop talking about it for the rest of the day.
From this point on until we started to ascend up towards Colby Pass and the trail degraded into a swamp. The trail was completely flooded and we simply found ourselves walking through ankle deep water, too impatient to find the actual trail because we were being totally eaten alive by Level-4 mosquitoes. I was really unimpressed by the trail construction here as the trail could have easily been built on the higher end of the canyon we were walking up.
Tired, wet, and having come out of our first mosquito swarm (far from the last unfortunately), we proceeded up the Colby Pass Trail. After climbing about 500 feet, we approached our first major/difficult non-bridged creek crossing: the Roaring River. Since it was the end of the day, the river was flowing at full force, and Arash gave it one look and exclaimed, “There is no FUCKINGe way we’re crossing that right now.” He had a point: we had just walked for 10 hours, the river was flowing as hard as it was going to all day, and there was a scary huge scary cliff about 45 feet down river. Arash threatened to turn back, but we compromised and found a spot to set up camp (a beautiful, mosquito-free spot overlooking the drainage) and agreed to wait to cross in the morning when the river was ebbing.
Day 3: From where the Colby Pass trail crosses the Roaring River to about 1.5 miles past Gallat Lake. Distance: About 7.5 miles. Elevation Gain: 2800’, Elevation Lost: 2562’
From start to finish, Day 3 was probably the most beautiful day of the entire trip. It was also the most eventful, hence the long entry. It wasn’t going to be easy though, with a tough climb up and over the still-snowy Great Western Divide, and an early morning wade across the swift, knee deep Roaring River. At this point, we were still planning on doing the Big Seki Loop, and were planning on a 14–16 mile day. Long story short: that didn’t happen.
After crossing slowly with rope tied around our waists, we began our ascent towards Colby Lake and Colby Pass. Again, we (read: Arash) made slower than planned time given the tough first two days. Eventually, at about 10:30am, about 2.5 hours after starting, we made it to Colby Lake. This was was much too slow. At this point, my frustration about our pace came to a head, and Arash and I had a small argument/coming-to-Jesus discussion about what we were going to do on this hike, because it became increasingly clear that we were not going to make the entire hike at the pace we were going. Long story short, after my anger subsided, I figured that taking the Bubbs Creek trail as a bailout back to the car and spending 6 days in the mountains with my best friend would be better than going back the way we came.
We enjoyed the absolutely magnificent beauty and solitude of Colby Lake for about an hour and a half, and then began the ascent of our 2nd pass of the trip. A march up the Great Western Divide is always special for a number of reasons. It spans almost the entire length of the Southern Sierras, is comprised of multiple peaks that are over 13k feet, and when summited, offer fantastic views in each direction. It’s also special because it separates three major watersheds: the Kings River, the Kern River, and the Kaweah River.
While climbing up the pass, there were two subplots that guided the next two and a half hours: 1) The massive snow year of 2019 made is so that even though it was July 28th, most of the trail at the top of the pass was still covered in snow, forcing us to climb the pass cross-country style and blaze our own trail and 2) one of my best friends of 15 years decides to tell me that he is deathly afraid of heights on top of a mountain at 11,000 feet (about 1000' below the pass)! Slowly but surely, we made our way up the pass, switch-backing in the snow. It was slow going, and even though Arash had a small panic-attack about 300' from the summit, we made it. I had no idea how bad Arash’s fear of heights was until his panic attack, but to see him conquer his fear made me so happy and proud to have him there with me.
We made it over the pass at about 4pm and alas, we were in Sequoia National Park. From there descended the eastern side of the Colby Pass trail towards Gallat Lake. The section just below the pass on the eastern side is absolutely beautiful, and it was a lovely downhill walk. Once we were within a mile of Gallat Lake, the mosquitoes got insufferable again. At Gallat lake, which was flooded and swampy throughout it’s small basin, was swarming with mosquitoes. We pushed on trying to get away from what seemed like the plague, but eventually said screw it and camped on a flat spot along the Kern-Kaweah. This was the first of two nights in a row where we had to cook dinner inside the tent due to mosquitoes.
Day 4: From about 1.5 miles past Gallat Lake to Lake 10745' (just south of Upper Kern Basin). Distance: About 9 miles. Elevation Gain: ~2900’, Elevation Lost: ~1900’
This day would see a lot of changes in ecosystems, from a narrow, rocky river canyon, to a large forested river canyon, to being back into the high country above 10,500 feet. It also saw our worst day for mosquitoes, and two important river crossings, one much worse than the other.
We spent the morning following the beautiful yet fierce Kern-Kaweah river, where it tumbles down it’s very narrow & steep canyon along the eastern side of the Colby Pass trail. Surprisingly, there were a few spots where it pooled and slowed down (as seen in the GIF to the left), but unfortunately it was too early to stop for a swim. It took us the better part of the morning, but after about an hour and a half I could see the confluence with the Kern River which eventually led us north to the hot, dusty, and boring Junction Meadow.
We anticipated a tough crossing at the confluence of the Kern-Kaweah and the Kern River, but found it only about knee deep (at its worst), but very, very wide. It must have been a 50–60 yard crossing in multiple stages.
We then proceeded up the Kern which was pretty standard until we got to the Tyndall Creek crossing late in the afternoon. Tyndall Creek starts probably 2–3 air miles east at the top of Mt. Tyndall, over 14,000' up. It was obvious that this would be our worst crossing by far. As Tyndall Creek gets closer to the Kern, it becomes very narrow and quite deep. It must have been chest deep, and it was moving insanely fast. A fall would have led to certain injury and may have been fatal. We searched for a way to cross, and after walking upstream for about 40 min, found two sketchy logs that looked to be barely holding on. Of course, we decided that they would suffice as our make-shift bridge. They required us to wade about halfway across into the center of the creek, but it was worth a shot. I tied a knot around Arash and he went first without his pack. After he made it across, we passed the packs across the river, and then with one foot on the log, Arash pulled me over. Us getting across that creek was a beautiful moment for our friendship, and we were ecstatic that we could continue.
Aside from one of the most beautiful waterfalls I’d seen on the Kern River, the trail north of Tyndall Creek was brutal due to the mosquitoes. We simply could not get away from them, and after 2500' feet of climbing over the course of the entire day, we were starting to get tired. I really wanted to make it into the Upper Kern Basin, but we settled for the lake after the turn off for the JMT connector (Lake 10745'). Unfortunately, the mosquitoes never relented, and we had to cook dinner inside our tent again. At least we had a beautiful view of Mt. Genevra, Mt. Jordan (I think), and Peak 3813m.
Day 5: Lake 10745' (lake just north of the JMT connector) to a campsite overlooking Bubbs Creek Drainage. Distance: About 9.5 miles. Elevation Gain: ~3141’, Elevation Lost: ~2013’
This day revolved around us getting up and over Forrester Pass, the highest point on the PCT, the dividing line between Sequoia NP and Kings Canyon NP, and the only trailed way to get over the Kings-Kern Divide (the divide separating the Kings and Kern watershed). We also finally got a break from the mosquitoes for most of the day, and also got to stay at one of the best campsites I’d ever stayed at, and probably ever will.
We left our beautiful camp with views of the Kings-Kern Divide around the time the mosquitoes started to wake up. I didn’t have any expectations for the JMT connector trail, but i was pleasantly surprised. The meadows in the beginning are full of wildflowers, tranquil creeks, and outstanding views of the Great Western Divide. We strolled on throughout the morning, taking our time and enjoying this beautiful part of the trail.
We approached the JMT a little after noon, quickly chatting with the trail crew. Arash was pretty focused on Forrester Pass, knowing that he’d have to go higher than Colby, but was much more confident this go-around given his experience. We lunched right below the pass, and then reached the top at around 3pm.
To my surprise, Forrester Pass was nothing short of spectacular at the top. There was Sky Pilot EVERYWHERE, and the views north — of the Bubbs Creek drainage — were like nothing I’d ever seen. I’d actually never seen so much Sky Pilot in my life. It’s probably my favorite wild-flower in the Sierra: this perfectly round, gorgeous purple flower that only grows in talus (rock) fields above 12,500'.
The north side of the pass still had significant snow coverage, but there was already a very clear path of footprints from previous hikers.
The entire hike down (north) from the top of the pass I was on cloud 9: what an incredible view of a perfectly carved glacial valley. The valley was massive and the shape of a huge “S”…it was so easy to imagine the glacial ice-river chomping away from the divide that we had just crossed. We continued down, noting the small trickles and streams that would eventually turn into the mighty Bubbs Creek.
Between a mile or two from the summit, when you cross Bubbs Creek for the first time, a massive rock appears on your left. Arash and I were filling water, and even though it was early, i implored that we check out what was over the rock, knowing that it would have a crazy view of the canyon that we had seen on our hike from the summit. Once we climbed up and walked closer to the edge, a number of campsites came into view, with one perched directly onto a cliff overlooking said valley. This was too good of a campsite to give up, and even thought it was only 6:30, about an hour before we typically setup camp, we stayed. I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking.
Day 6: Campsite overlooking Bubbs Creek Drainage to Roads End. Distance: About 18 miles. Elevation Gain: ~300’, Elevation Lost: ~7162’ (lol)
We made the choice very early on in the day that we should attempt to get back to the car so that we could have a fresh hot meal and a couple of beers. It was going to be almost 20 miles, but we that it was almost all downhill which made it more bearable.
We made really good time, zooming down the entire Bubbs Creek all the way from its headwaters to where it joins the South Fork of the Kings River. It was a gorgeous day, and aside from the crowds on the Bubbs Creek Trail, the most memorable thing from the day was the speed in which Arash and I drank our first six pack of Modelo at the Cedar Grove lodge. I’ve been on the Bubbs Creek trail a few times and it never ceases to amaze me how beautiful of a landscape you can surround yourself in just 4–8 miles away from civilization. Kings Canyon is truly a special place.
