Golden Trout Wilderness 2023-09-28

Maggie moved out west this past summer, and it’s been constant chaos since she arrived. We moved apartments, flew back to the east coast for her brother’s wedding, I’ve been running flight ops for Reliable Robotics in support of the C208 UAS mission, she had a number of events for work, et cetera, et cetera. We had promised ourselves earlier in the year that we would take some time off together at the end of September, and before we knew it, it was the middle of September and we didn’t have a plan.

First we looked at doing a backpacking trip around King’s Canyon, but snow and winds made the region unappealing. Ventana was a warmer option, but Maggie really wanted to get out into the Sierra; I’ve been talking it up to her now for years . We settled on a trip to the Golden Trout Wilderness just south of Sequoia. The Kern river canyon cuts right through the middle of the region, and the lower altitude would allow us to stay warmer than a trip to higher elevations. I had also done a trip there a few years back when I lived in Half Moon Bay, so I was familiar with the region.

We drove out on the 29th. It’s a 5 hour straight shot to the trailhead, but we had a bit of a debacle trying to find the right ranger station to get a permit. We found, upon arrival, that the first station had moved, and when we got to the new location they directed us to a third location 20 minutes in the wrong direction. All told, it took us nearly all day to get there. Fortunately, we didn’t have big aspirations for hiking in that day. We finally arrived at Jerky Meadows trailhead around 5. After getting parked and triple checking our bags, we hiked a short ~6 miles to the Little Kern bridge to spend our first night. Before the trip, I purchased the Durston Gear X-Mid 2, and this was our first night out in the tent. My previous tent, The One from Gossamer Gear was nearly the perfect tent for me, but it was only big enough for one, and I thrashed it on the PCT. I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of pitch of the X-Mid 2, and it had plenty of space for the two of us (without weighing a ton).

The next day brought huge puffy clouds to the area. After a leisurely breakfast and coffee, we packed up our things and started along the trail. First we walked through Horseshoe Meadows, where Maggie was delighted to spot 6 gorgeous horses out to pasture. Next we continued north and dropped down into the Kern Canyon. It was just as magnificent as I remembered; the Kern River has carved thousands of feet out of the surrounding mountains, creating a river basin flanked with vast cliffs on each side. Being in a national forest, the trail doesn’t get regular maintenance, so the trail through the saddle on the way in and the switchbacks leading down to the river were covered in thorny plants and debris. We carefully picked our way down, and I lamented not buying/bringing gaiters.

We followed the river north along its banks. Sections of the trail had been washed out from the high snow floods earlier in the year, and other sections were completely grown over with underbrush. One section was both completely grown over with greenery up to my armpits and the trail had been commandeered into a stream. You couldn’t see where you were stepping in the water flowing below. I tried bushwhacking around the worst of it, but ended slipping and being enveloped completely by the undergrowth.

The trail seemed to improve as we got north. First we hit the Little Kern Lake, making a mental note to stop there one evening, then the Kern Lake. From there we continued on a few more miles to the Kern River Ranger station, where the southern section of the sequoia national perk meets the golden trout wilderness. We wandered around the rangers’ cabin, waved to the ranger, investigated a sign pointing to “Soda Springs” (which lead nowhere) and then found a camp site near the river. We set up camp, then I set off to go fishing with my Tenkara rod in the last of the light while Maggie stayed back at the tent and read. Right as the sun set, I caught a ~10in rainbow on a red copper john nymph.

We slept in a bit the next day- my pad has a slow leak so I kept waking up on the ground, and Maggie is still adjusting to sleeping on a pad. After consulting the map for a while, we decided to leave our bags near the rangers’ station and hike up Coyote Pass. Right after we made plans and packed up camp, two separate helicopters flew down the canyon.

The weather looked inclement, but we soldiered up the side of the mountain on the trail up to the pass. Much like earlier sections, the trail was completely overgrown and/or non-existent, so I lead us up in generally the right direction, stopping occasionally to check the map against landmarks on the way up. A few times, I brought up to Maggie that she was quite trusting to be following me blindly up a hill with no trail, ~25 miles into the wilderness.

We found our way up into the high alpine biome while clouds roiled and the temperature dropped. The next thing we knew, the skies opened up and we were treated to hail. The hail filled in the forest floor and brought out the brilliancy of the shades of orange and yellow and green of the fall. Hiking up hill keeping us warm, and we didn’t stop until the hail let up and we reached the top. It was quite cold at 10,000’, but at least it wasn’t hailing. We ate a lunch of baguette, avocado, apples, sour patch watermelons and trail mix, interspersed with jumping jacks to stay warm.

The way down wasn’t much better. The temperature climbed as we descended, but the hail returned and then turned to rain. We donned our Frogg Toggs rain ponchos and pretended to be gnomes and ghosts kyoodling down the trail.

When we reached the canyon floor, we grabbed our packs from where we had stashed them behind a rock, and had a brief reprieve from the rain under a large pine tree while deciding what to do next. We decided to make our way back to Little Kern Lake, where we would spend the night. We were banking on the weather improving the next day, when we could hopefully dry out our things and warm up a big more.

We arrived back at the lake around 6pm. It wasn’t clear if the sun was down or the clouds had simply blocked everything out, but we hiked the last section with headlamps. It was cold, but we were both warm and in generally high spirits as we hiked along. When we reached the little kern lake, I quickly setup the tent and bundled Maggie up in her sleeping bag inside. Upon returning from a trip to the lake’s edge for water, I found her fully encased in her bag, shivering and nearly non-communicative. As I panicked internally, we worked together to get her out of any layers with residual wetness and into a full, dry backup set of clothes I had brought. I had also brought my Outdoor Research down parka (for this exact scenario), which I pulled out of my bag and wrapped her up in. Finally, I made her a cup of hot cocoa and fed her as much food as I could. Thankfully she began to warm back up after a while, and I was able to calm myself a bit. We fell asleep after a while, bundled up and warm with the rain pattering on the tent roof.

The next day brought glorious sunshine and warmth. We set out most of our wet gear to dry, and while Maggie basked in the sun, I stumbled around the edge of the lake with my rod. I spent nearly two hours stalking from spot to spot, and I caught a ~15in kern river rainbow and hooked into two other. It seemed that the trout were transitioning into winter lethargy, as they were slow on the uptake and didn’t put up much of a fight.

After Maggie and I were both fully dried off, we packed up once again and headed south. We hiked back down the river, up the hillside, over the saddle, past Horseshoe Meadow (and Maggie’s friends) and back to the Little Kern Bridge. We setup camp for the night in the same place as our first night, happy to be dry. We were treated to a magnificent sunset over the bridge and river. The next day we hiked back out to the car, thanked any and all deities that it was still there and that the engine started, and began the drive back home.

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