This trip proved interesting. Mineral King Road was under construction so we had to plan when we arrived to allow us to pass the construction zone. During the week there was no crossing, one would have to wait until construction ended at 4pm or before it started at 10am. On Fridays there was a 1pm passthrough. The drive from Santa Cruz to Sequoia up Mineral King Road was 5.5 hours. So we decided that arriving by 1pm would be fine since we were only planning to do 5 miles to Monarch Lakes just south of Sawtooth Pass.

We left Santa Cruz at a leisurely 6:30am with plenty of time to take breaks in order to arrive at 1pm. After lunch we arrived at 11:30am! So we dawdled by the stream near the construction zone.

We arrived at the Mineral King Ranger Station by 2:30pm and received terrible news. Sawtooth Pass has too much snow this early in the season and ice axes and crampons are required! We had to come up with a new plan. The only reasonable option to me was to go over Timber Gap and noodle around the Cliff Creek area and maybe make our way to Bearpaw Meadow (we only made it as far north as Redwood Meadow Grove).

I was bummed to have to abandon our planned Kern River Hot Springs trip, but gotta go with the flow in the Sierras. We burrito rolled our car with tarp to protect from the marmots and we were off.

The first day was going to be a challenge. We had full packs with 6 days worth of food and we had to hike 2.7 miles up with 1700ft of elevation gain. Plus we were unacclimated. Luckily the Sierras graced us with a light drizzle to keep us cool and refreshed. In hindsight, I wished we ditched some food in the parking lot bear box, but at the time we didn't know we were getting out early :(

Enjoy this new gallery component I developed to show off some more pictures from our first day :)

This was my girlfriend's first backpacking trip and she was unaccustomed to snow traversal, but she handled it like a champ!

From Timber Gap it was 3.5 miles to the junction with Cliff Creek and our first campsite. It was already 5pm when we got to Timber Gap and we had a lot of snow to cross so it took more time than I wanted. The mosquitos were pretty bad in certain moist sections, but we deeted up and trekked on. We arrived at Cliff Creek by 7:30pm. Another group had arrived before us, they were the kindest guys I've ever met and let us select the nice camp spots since our group had girls. They even shared food, their portable chairs, and made us all a fire! What service! The campsite had a permanent bear box, but it was on the other side of the river which we could not cross in the dark.

We crossed the creek early in the morning after a nice breakfast, coffee and our new friends fire. We all decided to check out Pinto Lake instead of heading towards Bearpaw Meadow. Heading up Cliff Creek would also bring us to the base of Black Rock Pass so I could check out how the snow was. At 11,700ft it's a formidable pass. Many years ago I went over Glacier Pass past Spring Lake and up Black Rock Pass. I tried to convince our new buddies to check out Spring Lake but there was way too much snow.

We started at 7,000ft and Pinto is at 8,800ft so it was pretty slow going for us with heavy packs. But the views were outstanding and I could not help feeling elated.

When we got to Pinto Lake we took a quick dip in the gorgeous meadow stream. Took a nice long break and then day tripped towards Black Rock Pass. At around 10,600ft we turned around. Our buds tried to continue, but when we saw them later they said the snow was too much to make it to Little Five Lakes Basin.

We hung out for the rest of the day. Pinto Lake area has tons of campsites and a dedicated bear box. We saw a beautiful sunset, tons of marmots and in honor of my girlfriends first backpacking trip we had a Mountain House meal taste test. We all opened a pack and passed it around. It was excellent! We got to try: Beef Stew, Korean Inspired Beef, Buffalo Style Chicken Mac & Cheese, Chicken and Dumplings, Chicken & Mashed Potatoes, Spaghetti with Beef Marinara. Never had I had so many options! Personal favorite was Spaget, but I think the Korean dish was quite popular.

Our new impromptu plan was to hike to Redwood Meadow Grove, then see if we can hike out on day 3. We had a very nice easy day hiking mostly downhill. The section from the trail junction with Timber Gap to Redwood Meadow Grove had quite a lot of downed trees and trail obstructions, but was otherwise uneventful. Just beautiful wild flowers and gigantic redwood trees and tons of oxygen as we descended to our 6,000ft elevation destination.

Redwood Meadow Grove was super odd! There was a few cabins, a horse/cattle coral. From my little research the cabin used to be a ranger station built in 1938 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, but is no longer used other than by some trail maintainers on occasion. The cabins in the area were boarded up and padlocked. We hung out on the deck and enjoyed the space for lunch. We also saw two black bears prowling the area!

The sign said campsite 0.2 miles away, but it was super unobvious where the campsites were. We went up and down the fork and ended up going towards the western Granite Creek instead of East towards Eagle Scout Creek. We found a fire ring adjacent to the creek which was still flowing early in the season. I also saw another bear and frightened it away by smashing sticks and shouting "Hey Bear!", the girls were unaware I saved their life 😏

We decided to head out. From Redwood Meadow Grove we went 9 miles with 3,500ft of elevation gain. Pretty intense day! But we were ready and the road out wasn't open until after 4pm so it made sense to us.

Seeing the car is always amazing, our dogs were barking. Ready to crush some burgers and beer.