Backpacking to Charlotte Lake
Kings Canyon National Park, Sierra Nevada Mountains, CA
The Sierra Nevada Mountains are one of my homes. Up above Onion Valley in the Eastern Sierra, is one of the majestic stretches of the entire Sierra. I was fortunate in getting a back country permit. This is an excerpt from a solo backpacking trip I made in 2019:
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I descended off Kearsarge Pass, hearing about a rabid bat biting two trail crew members at Kearsarge Lakes in the past week or so. They were helicoptered out, got the needed treatment and were fine. That was something new to add to any list of things to consider when solo backpacking.
At the intersection, I took the high trail in the direction of Charlotte Lake, my destination for the day. For 2+ miles, I reveled in the cross-country trail, meaning it meandered mostly down but had its ups, and popping in and out of trees with vistas to blue lakes and rugged, raw, jagged mountains had me flying high.
The view of Bullfrog Lake defined natural beauty:
At the junction with the JMT, I stayed straight and made my way to Charlotte Lake:
The trail dropped to the lake, where I found a camp spot and set up for the afternoon/evening/night. It was only 12:30 in the afternoon. I was hungry and needed to hydrate. My only other plan was to go for a swim, read, write, cook supper and read some more.
Kearsarge lakes is where we ended our JMT in Sep 2016. Three of us started in Yosemite Valley. By Kearsarge, one had a foot that had gone numb and another with an arm that had gone numb. And I was tired. Although we had summited Whitney from the Portal in 2013, that's where we wanted to end our JMT to make it official. We descended into Onion Valley and then stayed at the Mt Williamson in Independence, where we gave our waiting cache away, and went back home. On the descent, I wore every article of clothing I had. It was getting cold.