June 2021. HIGH SIERRA TRAIL PART 1 OF 2. Sequoia National Park backpacking. Day 1, Nine Mile Creek. Day 2, Hamilton Lakes. Day 3, Precipice Lake and Nine Lake Basin.
On these first 3 days I saw many interesting critters and we had a very intense thunderstorm at Hamilton Lake. The scenery is outstanding. The waterfalls are spectacular.
I had no intention or desire to hike the entire High Sierra Trail on this trip. My goal was to hike a section of it in order to see ALL the waterfalls in this section. If I was hiking the entire HST I would not have been able to see all the waterfalls. This would be a 6 day backpacking trip on the High Sierra Trail in Sequoia National Park. Six days is the longest backpacking I have ever done thus far (my previous longest was 5 days). I saw 11 waterfalls in the 6 days.
I arrived at the Giant Forest Museum in Sequoia National Park to get my permit at a good early time. There were three people ahead of me. One of them had an invalid permit (due to his own mistake). The ranger was a nice guy and was trying to get him a valid permit but it took 45 minutes! I appreciate him being nice but he should have made the guy wait until the others behind him in line could get their permits (there were 2 others behind me also). This basically delayed me an hour in starting my hike.
Well, it was not really a big deal because I was only planning to hike about 6 miles to Mehrten Creek. I arrived at Mehrten Creek about noon and ate my lunch. My plan was to camp here and see the two waterfalls in the evening. However, Mehrten Creek was essentially dry. I was surprised and disappointed. I know we are in a drought this year but it is only early June. I was not expecting much but the creek should have still had decent flow. How is this going to fare for the rest of the waterfalls on my trip? It was not worth photographing the Mehrten Creek waterfalls at all so I decided to push on to Nine Mile Creek. This would make my hike for the second day a bit shorter.
I arrived at Nine Mile and set up camp. It was a big buggy with gnats and mosquitoes so I made a fire to keep them away. Camp fires are allowed here (but not above 9000 ft.). The mosquitoes were not “horrible” (we will have more discussion about mosquitoes later), but even a few is bad so a fire works well to keep them all away. A couple other hikers arrived at the camp a bit later, one going back to the trailhead and one going the same direction as me (he was doing the entire HST). Also, a group of girls passed on by and another couple as well. So that means I expected to see about 3 other groups at Hamilton Lake the next day. There are not a lot of great camping spots there so my plan was to get up early and hike the remaining 6 miles to the lake, beating the other groups there and obtaining the best spot at the lake. That was the plan.
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Sunset Fields by Alexander Nakarada | www.serpentsoundstudios.com
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