Flagstaff to Kings Canyon

7/9/11

After dropping Rachel off at her apartment, we headed to the library to write our blog post (free Internet and electricity and no mandatory coffee drinking, much better). We almost forgot our towels at Rachel's, thankfully she noticed - showering without a drying implement is trickier still than showering without running water. It took us quite some time at the library; we kept our energy up by sneaking pb&j sandwiches into the library and eating them surreptitiously.

By late afternoon though, we were ready for real food. So we headed over to Pato, a Thai place that Rae recommended. We ordered #49 Spicy Noodle, which we thought sounded like Pad Kee Mao, and Tom Ka soup, both with fried tofu. The soup was delectable, but the spicy noodle dish wasn't amazing. We enjoying picking the place apart on measures of authenticity: no picture of the king and queen - minus one, playing Thai music - plus one, decor has entire pieces that are Khmer, not Thai - minus one, food served with Thai condiments - plus one, Thai condiments missing sugar and fish sauce - minus one, etc. After helping a couple next to us pick out their meal, we took our to-go box and headed to a grocery (Basha's) to supply.

As the day waned, we found a place to camp near Bullhead City on the Nevada/Cali border. There was a wilderness area near a state park, score. You can't drive on wilderness land, so the road was technically state park, but anything off the road was free camping. We found a trailhead, which had a "no camping sign," which I took to mean "no camping in the parking lot." We parked the car by the pit toilet and walked into the wilderness area a little ways to pitch our tent. We obeyed the letter of the law, not sure if we obeyed the intent or not. Robert thought it was sketch, I thought we were well within our rights; I guess he is entitled to his own opinion, even if it is wrong ;).

We ate dinner of avocado and maters and leftover spicy noodles. It kept threatening to rain on us, succeeding only for a short while, but we made lemonade by appreciating an awesome lightning storm raging on a nearby mountain range. Robert's favorite part though was the bats that kept buzzing us, eating the insects attracted to our smell. My favorite part was the stars, once the clouds rolled past.
 

Robert stretches and admires the landscape after our long drive.

7/10/11
Today we awoke, just where we put ourselves to bed, in NV at the Grapevine Trailhead, but it was at the indecent hour of 6:15am; temperature was already 90+. Damn the desert.

Robert protects our homestead.

A sign mentioned petroglyphs nearby, so we took the 1/4 mi trek to see if they were interesting or not. They didn't disappoint.

Coolest petroglyphs we could find - in fact, the ones used on the trail sign!

A cool shot of the scenery

Robot-shaped petroglyphs!

We drove to Barstow, CA, location of the nearest dependable Internet connection - by which I do mean, Starbucks. Two small chai tea lattes later we had two posts. Next we ate two Pb&J and two apples, car lunch. Aa we ate, we drove to Bakersfield, CA and visited a very ghetto Albertsons. It is always a crap shoot as to what you get when you search for grocery stores on the GPS or google maps, alas. We wanted to buy food for our next hike, so we had fairly specific requests, many involving Fantastic Foods. If you don't know the brand, you would find their products in the "natural or health" foods section in The Woodlands. They make lots of veggie and several dehydrated type products. For example, dehydrated black bean soup mix, falafel mix, veggie taco filling mix, etc. Needless to say, we couldn't find Fantastic Foods, nor dehydrated eggs, nor Health Valley Zesty Black Bean Soup Mix. Did I mention that we planned this trail meal itinerary from the Lipsmacking Vegetarian Backpacking recipe book?? We filled our cart and upon checkout I thought, "The only refrigerated item we bought was cheese." I love gawking at others' food purchases and I wonder what fellow gawkers thought of our selection.

It was getting late so we decided to keep heading towards Kings Canyon NP, hoping to find another grocery along the way. Navigator Nancy had a hell of a time looking up alternatives and asking after "Fantastic Foods, " dehydrated health food bits? We eventually stumbled upon the town of Woodlawn, which had two strongly Hispanic groceries, neither of which carried Fantastic Foods, both of which carried fantastic foods - I wish we could have shopped their just for fun! They had lots of items I had never heard of, but looked tasty. oops.

Next Navigator Nancy had to get us to a campable spot for the night, another task that proved Herculean. I ended up taking us on this itty-bitty teeny-weenie road (245), which looked just fine when rendered as a straight yellow line on the map. The scenery was great, the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, but it was two way and we topped out at 25mph (10mph on curves, of which there were many). If the scenery hadn't been spectacular, Robert might have gotten himself a new navigator. (I didn't take a picture because we needed to get to the campsite and we were grumpy and staving off motion sickness.)

We got into the park just after dark, stopped by the still-open pay station and used our America The Beautiful Pass to gain entry. We happily paid $18 to Crystal Campground for a nice flat place to camp and a giant bear box in which to store ALL of our smelly bits. Sleep quickly followed digestion of dinner.
 

7/11/11
Today we needed to finish provisioning for our hike. We ate oatmeal and packed up camp. There was a mass exodus from the campground, people clearing out after a long weekend. I enjoyed using the dishwashing station, which every campsite on the planet needs. Why dump soapy water into the watershed when you have a drain?

Robert packed up all our food into neat little zippies

We headed out to a store within the park to see what we could purchase there, not much, but we did buy some very expensive Mac and Cheese. We stopped in at the Cedar Grove Visitor Center, but left quickly - they looked totally unhelpful to backcountry folk. Next we made the tough decision to drive into Fresno - an hour one way, but I needed super glue or shoo goo otherwise my boots would not carry me through another hike. My soles had started detaching from the bottom of my boots in a serious way, maybe I should return them to REI under their satisfaction guarantee...

We listened to the second book of the Eragon trilogy as we drove, our standard car fare, got superglue at a WallyMart and headed back to the park. We stopped at a fruit stand for 4 peaches, 2 corns, 2 small squash and two taters - total: $5.47. Smile. The drive out to Cedar Grove and Road's End is the best in the park (a fact I can say now, after having driven the General's Highway and being thoroughly unimpressed). The road climbs and zigzags, and you get great views of craggy multiple-colored rock faces and steep canyon bits. Eventually the road drops and follows the swollen Kings River, every turn is a mesmerizing sight - so much water!!

Grizzly Falls

We got shower and laundry tokens from a little store and delighted in being clean. (showers were $3.75 for ten minutes, steep!) we went around the way and paid another $18 (actually 20 b/c we didn't have change) to sleep at Moraine Campground. We enjoyed trying to eat all the fresh food out of our cooler - salad, trail guac, and leftover stew plus more veggies - oh and the rest of our bottle of whiskey. I like whiskey.

This is the face that must be made while super gluing your boots (and fingers) back together on the eve of a six day trek.

(Priceless sidebar: One night on our Gila hike... you know the one: we couldn't cook and were eating pretty terrible food just for the calories. Robert and I are in the tent, just starting to drift into sleep, out of the darkness a voice states, "I like mayonnaise." Yes, dear? "I like mayonnaise." Uh-huh, sure you do. What does that have to do with anything? "I dunno." He claims to have been fully awake at the time, but I am doubtful. Visions of tunafish and mayonnaise surely were dancing through his head. Needless to say, in times of want, he wants mayonnaise most of all.)

Sleep and tomorrow we will pack up and hike out - after getting a mandatory bear canister and a permit, fingers crossed.

This is the bear spirit who watched over our bear box and warded off any curious bears. Stay wild, my friends, no free meal here! (He came from Wendy's according to the bottom of his back, right foot.)