Across the Sierra to Tehipite Valley

Tehipite Valley (the Lost Yosemite), and the epic Tehipite Dome, was our destination. This rarely visited valley is buried deep inside Kings Canyon National Park, and there's no easy way to get there. The closest approach is a 15+ mile trail from Wishon Reservoir on the west side requiring a brutal descent of 3500 feet in under 2 miles on primitive trail into the valley. But what fun is that when we can just walk across the Sierra and get there? And then come out on the west side with a little help from our friends! This time it was our good friend BJ who made the drive over to pick us up. Thank you BJ!!

Our first day was identical to our last trip over the Sierra in late July (We Finish the Sierra High Route), up and over Bishop Pass and down to LeConte Canyon. We even stayed in our favorite little campsite along the Middle Fork Kings River. 

Mt. Goode above Long Lake

LeConte Canyon from the edge of Dusy Basin

Home again for the night

Our second day took us the three miles south on the John Muir Trail to the junction. Turn left and we'll stay on the JMT towards Palisades Lakes. Been there, done that. This time we would take the right fork and stay along the Kings River. This chunk of trail sees very limited visitation but wasn't in terrible shape overall. We weaved and climbed and descended down the river for most of the day enjoying the views. One last chance to change our minds at the junction for The Bitch Trail (yes, really) through Simpson Meadow and down to Roads End, or the Tehipite Trail. We're all in. We cross the mighty Kings River (easy now, death in the spring) and continue on the Tehipite Trail for a couple of miles. We also get our first taste of how long it's been since this trail has been maintained. Probably somewhere around the Clinton Administration, or longer. Susan says Eisenhower. There are down trees everywhere, and many cross the faint trail. It's awful, but we're only getting a taste of what's to come...

An early morning view of The Sentinel in LeConte Canyon

It's show time

Middle Fork Kings River

An ealy indication of overgrown trail

A beautiful cascade along the river

Looking back upstream

And downstream

This is the Devil's Washbowl (named on the map)

An old and decaying bridge across Cataract Creek, but better than nothing!

Thankfully Susan spotted this Northern Pacific Rattlesnake in the middle of the trail before it mattered

The canyon opens up at Simpson Meadow before we commit to the Tehipite Trail

Crossing the Kings River to join the Tehipite Trail. This is impassable in spring with snowmelt runoff.

Second camp, along the river. Not much for views but after 14 miles we are tired

Our goal for the third day was to make it to Tehipite Valley which should have been an easy 10ish mostly downhill miles. But the "trail" had something to say about it. The overgrowth of shrubs was epic and number of very large down trees was brutal. With lots of cuts and scrapes, and a blazing average speed of 1 mph we limped into the valley. But what a valley it is. Huge granite walls carved by a glacier. The star of the show is Tehipite Dome, towering 3500 feet above the Kings River. It's the largest granite dome in all of the Sierra, even taller than El Capitan in Yosemite (3000 feet above the Merced River). We found a nice campsite at the base of the dome and dropped our stuff. We had rock art to find. There's a famous pictograph panel here named Painted Rock on the map. It took some searching but we found it. As rock art lovers, this one was pretty special to add to our collection. 

The down trees start right away

Overgrown shrubs make following the "trail" difficult and slow us way down

Our first glimpse of Tehipite Dome from a couple of miles away

Beaufiful granite walls of Tehipite Valley

The artwork at Painted Rock was done by the Mono (Monanche) peoples an estimated 200-1000 years ago

Sunset on the Kings River

Tehipite Dome is right over camp. We'll get much better looks the following day

Day 4 will stick in our memories for the rest of our lives. After a leisurely stroll down the valley for a mile or so enjoying the incredible views, it was time to climb out. We considered staying over one day, but with the trail conditions we were afraid that we wouldn't make it out before we ran out of food. It was a wise choice. There are no down river trails exiting the valley unless you backtrack (through all those down trees) to the Bitch Trail. The only real choice is to climb out. 3500 feet of elevation gain in less than two miles on a very primitive trail made far worse by severe overgrowth of the vegetation and many more down trees. It was horrible. And steep. And even in September very warm with NO water along the way. The only saving grace were the many amazing views of Tehipite Dome we had from various elevations as we climbed. We made it to the top of course, and continued on a couple of miles to find water and a flat place to camp. Amazingly enough a short time before we found camp, we saw our first evidence of trail maintenance. We knew it wouldn't last, but were thankful that the Park Service seems to be making some effort. 

Morning view across the river as we set off

We followed the river for a while as at least we knew what the hiking conditions would be like

An early view of the dome

After we got downstream a ways, Tehipite Dome came into full view

The "trail" as we start up

Tehipite Dome and the glacial carved U-shaped Tehipite Valley

Tehipite Valley down below

We're high enough now to get amazing views of the dome and valley

Susan declares lunch in the middle of the trail, the view was excellent. And there wasn't much chance that we'd be blocking anyone coming by (we never saw a soul after the morning of the second day).

One last look at the dome and valley as we near the top

Distant mountain come into view

There's a trail here somewhere...

We're higher than the top of Tehipite Dome now and progressing north

Wait! What are these? Freshly cut trees where the trail is!!

We found a tiny stream and called it a day. 5.6 total miles took 8 hours. Ouch.

The next morning we had a couple of miles of nicely maintained trail. That maybe would have continued if we had taken the direct route back to Wishon Reservoir, but what fun is that? Susan had her eye on a lakes basin sort of in the right direction, so we took off on the Rogers Creek Trail. Trail is an overly optimistic term. Maybe 50 years ago. We bushwhacked and climbed trees for a few miles before getting high enough that we were in granite again and moving along. We visited Lower and Upper Geraldine Lakes, both pretty by west side standards. With an unexpected thunderstorm moving in, and the fear of not getting close enough to the finish with one day of food left, we pressed on. By late afternoon we had bashed our way down to Spanish Lake. It was nice enough, if you don't mind a big herd of cows as your neighbors. We got the tent up just as it started to rain lightly for about half an hour. 

The entire Rogers Creek Trail looked like this until we got enough elevation

Finally, back in the high country

Lower Geraldine Lake

The view on our way to Upper Geraldine Lake

Upper Geraldine Lake

The storm, she's a movin' in

Spanish Lake

Our last day, and a good thing as we were out of food. What should have been a cruiser 6-ish miles down to the trailhead turned out to be nothing of the like. Cows. Would you like to hear how much we hate cows in the wilderness? I'm sure you can guess. The 1964 Wilderness Act allows grazing in historic grazing areas inside the wilderness. Sierra National Forest makes no attempt to limit this, nor apparently retire any old grazing allotments. Nor do they appear to enforce any overgrazing or severe damage in the wilderness. It was pretty hideous, and reminds me why we don't hike much on the west side. Finding the trails we needed were pretty much impossible as the cowboys push their herds into the high country on whichever routes they feel like. There's a spiderweb of cow trails, all thrashed to powder ankle or more deep. And the springs that we passed by were hippo wallows. It was sad. But with enough thrashing around and dead reckoning, we found our trailhead, and there was BJ to meet us!

Spanish Lake in the morning

Never ending trees

We did see a few nice fall Aspens

The historic Stratham Meadow with it's aging cabins and other strucures

Ugly cow trail

More ugly cow destruction

Our intrepid hikers survived again

This is what your feet and legs look like after walking on cow trails for miles...

We're glad we ticked Tehipite Valley off our bucket list (it had been on there for a long time), but it was one and done. We've been backpacking the Sierra for over 40 years, have completed the Sierra High Route, the Pacific Crest Trail, and too many other hikes and backpacks to count. This was the among toughest 6 days of our life. Period.