Cooper Canyon Trail Camp

Josiah and I went backpacking to Cooper Canyon Trail Camp this weekend. It was a wonderful time. We got to the trailhead at 12noon and reached the camp at 1pm when we had lunch. We hiked part of the way down on the Pacific Crest Trail. The hike in was 1.8 miles with an elevation loss of 700ft. Yesterday, we were the only people there until about 7pm when 2 other campers came in to camp. The stars at 3:30am were beautiful this morning. It was like being at Yosemite. The stars just lit up the sky.

We hiked out this morning at 9:00am and reached the car at Cloudburst summit at 10:45am. It was a 2.6mile hike out because we took the PCT all the way out to the car. The last 1/2 a mile we had an elevation gain of about 400ft. Now that was a training hike (the last 1/2 mile.) I feel fine after coming home. I don't feel to sore but I will see how I feel tomorrow morning when I have to be at work at 6:30am.

Well, the next backpacking trip we will be on is the trip through the Sequoias. We will be going in from North Lake and coming out Bishop Pass and South Lake. I will post pictures from that trip when we get back.

Oh, this was a much better of a training hike than Orchard Camp. It wasn't 104 on the trail at 12:45pm. The high was 84 and a low of 60 this morning. We camped at 6,300 feet elevation.

Orchard Camp Hike

Josiah and I went on a 6 mile hike today to Orchard Camp. We hit the trailhead at 8:45am. We hiked 3 miles up to Orchard Camp. We started out at approximately 950 feet and hiked up to 2,800 feet for an elevation gain of almost 1,900 feet.

The hike was miserable. This is definitely a November ~ May hike. When we started out it was 98 at 9:00am. At least half of the hike is in the sun. On the way out when we were coming down, the temperature reached 104 on the trail. This was at 12:45pm.

We did this hike as a conditioning hike for the Sequoia hike we will be taking in the middle of August. I don't think we will have to worry about 104 degree heat at 9,000 feet elevation.

We did ok on the hike except for the extreme heat. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this hike to anyone who was looking for a hike. It is a hot hike with not much scenery. 1st Water was a nice waypoint and we had lunch at a nice shady spot with running water but the hot sunny parts of the trail left both of us with bad memories of this hike.