Springtime in Sequoia National Park
Trip dates: 4/2-4/5/21
Total mileage: 30ish
With snow in the Sierra and closer-to-home trails closed due to last year’s wildfires, finding an early spring backpacking trail wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. Luckily Sequoia had a great trail that’s hotter than the surface of the sun in the summer, but makes for a great shoulder season trip.
Loud people and bright lights
A couple of weeks before our trip, I snagged the last site at Buckeye Flat Campground for Easter weekend. We made the four hour drive from Oakland on a Friday afternoon. Buckeye Flat was a short drive to the Middle Fork Trailhead, and we’d wanted to get an early start, so we paid $22 for a site. The campground was small, the bathroom doors were loud, the people were partying. I think I got 0 hours of sleep. Not the best way to start a backpacking trip, but I don’t think I ever manage to sleep well on my first night of sleeping outside, no matter how quiet it is.
Day 1: to the trail!
We were at the trailhead by 8:15 Saturday morning. Megan lead an impromptu stretch session (I need to get better about regular stretching in my old age) since I have a fucked up knee and she has a fucked up hip, then we were off. Our first creek crossing (Moro Creek) was maybe 1/4 mile into the hike, and the snowy Great Western Divide was visible all along the trail.
We took our lunch break about 7 miles in at Mehrten Creek. Backpacking with people who aren’t too lazy to cut veggies is always a refreshing treat. If it was just me, my lunch would have been a few spoonfuls of peanut butter.
We continued on with the goal of reaching Redwood Meadow for the night.
The final creek crossing (Granite Creek) had other plans for us, though. All the crossings up until Granite Creek were an easy rock hop or had bridges, so I’d assumed that we’d be fine to cross into Redwood Meadow. We’d asked a few other hikers how Granite Creek had looked, and half said it was crossable while the other half said it was sketchy. The half who said it was crossable were either backpacking in jeans or young male day hikers in the middle of nowhere an hour before sunset with nothing but a bottle of water. Lesson learned: don’t trust the jeans guy or the young unprepared dudes.
There was no way I was crossing at the trail, and I was too tired to try to find a better crossing, so we stopped 0.8 miles short of the meadow. Which was somewhat of a bummer, but also nice because stopping early meant we got to sleep next to my favorite white noise: the sound of a rushing creek.
Day 2: spring chickens
I was in my sleeping bag before dark and slept like a baby. The next morning, we woke up with the sun, had a quick breakfast, and started our leisurely two day hike back out to the trailhead.
I’d been so tired on the hike in that I hadn’t even noticed all of the big Sequoia trees we’d passed by the evening before. Note to self: no matter how tired you are, don’t forget to look up!
We stopped for the night at Panther Creek, which is as close to the trailhead as camping is allowed. Panther Creek is definitely a low effort, high reward campsite if that’s your destination from the trailhead, with excellent views of the Kaweah River, the Great Western Divide, and Castle Rocks. We were treated to a beautiful alpenglow sunset and bats flying over our heads after the sun went down.
Day 3: back to reality
The next morning, we took our time finishing up the 3.5 miles out to the car. We stopped to soak our feet at Moro Creek before driving to the Giant Forest for some proper car-based Sequoia touristing along Generals Highway.
The Middle Fork Trail would make for an excellent intro to backpacking. There are lots of places to camp spaced about 3-4 miles apart, and tons of water. We saw quite a few groups out there so it wasn’t exactly the epitome of solitude, but we were there on a holiday weekend and there’s not much else to do during COVID times, so I wasn’t too surprised by the number of people. I would love to do it again someday and actually have the energy to find a safe crossing to Redwood Meadow. Someday!
About The Author
