I take a backpacking trip with my dad every year. We usually target early summer, late June / early July. That’s around when his birthday is, the conditions have been good at that time in recent years, and neither of us mind the bugs too much. In past years, we’ve done the southernmost section of the John Muir Trail, the Ritter Range, and a loop out of Mineral King.

For this year’s outing I secured a permit to do the Rae Lakes Loop out of Roads End in Kings Canyon National Park. We’d do it counter-clockwise, going up Bubbs Creek and down Woods Creek. We vaguely planned to climb some peaks along the way and I noted down which ones were on the SPS list. I have a digital copy of Secor that I keep on my phone so I don’t have to print out excerpts from the book, a system that works very well.

On Friday, June 23rd I loaded all my things into the car and joined the rush hour traffic over Altamont Pass and south to Fresno where I spent the night at my parents place before driving into the park the next day.