Monday September 8, 22.7mi/36.5km

Pass above Cold Meadows (365.8/9740ft) to Kern Canyon at Rattlesnake Creek (388.5/6590ft) (CA)

The morning wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be, given that at almost 10,000 ft elevation.

I descended a little bit down to Cold Meadows, which definitely lived up to its name.

It was noticeably colder down here in this shallow valley, and the grass even had frost on it.

Getting across Cold Meadows was a little challenging, avoiding the swampy parts. Leaving Cold Meadows, however, proved to be much more difficult, as the trail disappeared.

I had three different maps downloaded for the area, and each showed the trail in a slightly different spot. I tried all three, and never found a trail. But it was an
open forest, so it was easy XC hiking. Once I got to the top of the ridge, I located the faint trail, and followed it easily to Stringer Saddle. The top of the pass was marked with a sign, and also this hilariously leaning tree.

From there the trail got better, and it was easy to follow down to Volcano Meadows.

I realized it was already noon, the morning hours had sped by, even though I only covered 9 miles. Trying to follow a faint trail is slow. I had lunch under a shady tree at the edge of the meadow, pondering why it would be called Volcano Meadows. A mile later, and I had my answer. There were lava fields everywhere!

After I had crossed Volcano Meadows, the trail quality improved considerably, I guess most hikers and trail crews don’t go beyond the meadow?

Most of the afternoon was a long downhill hike, back down to the Kern River. The same river I had left yesterday morning. This geologic feature caught me by surprise, I had no idea there was a natural bridge here.

A large creek was flowing right under the trail, pretty cool. And then I started to descend in earnest, dropping a couple thousand feet down into the Kern River Canyon.

It was a very nice trail, there were even hundreds of stone steps installed.

Back down at 6,500 ft elevation, the floor of the canyon was much warmer and I was back in the Manzanita climate.

Thankfully there was a big bridge over the Kern River, so I didn’t have to ford it.

And crossing the river meant I officially left Inyo National Forest and entered Sequoia National Park. And it’s still a decent sized river, even this far upstream.

Once across the river, I followed it upstream on a nice trail for the rest of the day, with some pretty sweet views of the canyon.

It was mostly a national park quality trail, there were even signs for the campsites.

This was one of the most impressive talus fields I’ve ever seen.

I had passed by another group that had already stopped to camp, I’m not used to seeing other backpackers, haha. I found a nice spot to camp at the junction with the Rattlesnake Trail, under some nice Ponderosa pines.