In the beginning, there was a plan.   Unfortunately, because of my lack of experience
about doing multi-day hiking, the plan wasn't complete.   In the end, there was pain
and suffering.   That didn't end when the trip ended.   You will learn about it below.

But there was a plan.   Part of the plan was to determine a few things.   One, what to
take on the trip.   Two, how to get from my home to Cedar Grove -- the entrance to
the Rae Lakes Loop trailhead.   Three, know the rules and regulations of the area.
Four, get acquainted with the trail.   "One" and "Two" will be covered soon.
"Three" went well and can be acquired via various Web sites/pages.   "Four" is
covered now ...

The Rae Lakes Loop trail is between 41 and 42 miles long.   It begins and ends at
Road's End.   And it is indeed a loop.   So, a person can choose to either traverse it
clockwise or counterclockwise.   My cousin and I chose the latter.   I wanted to go
that way because it would get the most difficult part of the trail, meaning the steepest
upslopes, finished first and leave relatively easier hiking for the end.   (It turned out
to be a good decision based upon the pain and suffering issue mentioned above.)   The
places where we hiked to and camped at were as follows, including a "point of
interest" ...

Point	Miles from Road's End	Elevation (feet)
Road's End	0.0	~5,063
Sphinx Junction	4.1 (4.1)	~6,360
Vidette Meadow	9.1 (13.2)	~10,540
Glen Pass	3.6 (16.8)	~11,952
Rae Lakes	1.9 (18.7)	~10,550
Upper Paradise	12.6 (31.3)	~8,170
Road's End	10.1 (41.4)	~5,063

There are several, about ten, other points along the trail.   If you wish, you can learn
about them at/on Web pages as mentioned above.   Now, on with the story!

September 5th
Today, I picked up the rental car, rental backpack, and rental food container (to
prevent bears from accessing food).   I decided to rent a car instead of driving one of
my own cars in order to eliminate the wear and tear on "my babies".   I'm glad that I
did because it would have been rough on one of them regarding the type of driving
required to get to my destination.   (This is detailed in the first paragraph of
September 6th.)   Unfortunately, the backpack wreaked of coconut-smelling suntan
lotion.   I decided to take it anyway, especially since REI didn't have any other
backpacks available.   Afterwards, I packed up the backpack, including a few new
items such as an ultra-lightweight one-man tent, a warm-shower kit, a chair, a whisk
broom and dust pan combination, lightweight hiking pants, and a compact washing
towel.   I also made a footprint/tarp for my new tent in order to prevent it from
getting damaged.   (I was pretty proud of my engineering feat.)

Unfortunately, I had not done sufficient preparation.   That is because I was going on
a type of backpacking/camping/hiking trip that I wasn't familiar with.   I was used to
the typical trip to "my lake" in Colorado where I hiked for six miles one day, camped
there for three days, and then hiked back the same six miles on the final day.   This
endeavor was supposed to involve hiking 6 or 7 miles per day, everyday, for 5 straight
days.   And it actually turned out to be 8.5 miles per day.   I will provide details about
this issue starting on the third day of the trip.

September 6th
I left home at 5:25 on Tuesday morning.   I'd planned on leaving at 5 o'clock, so I
wasn't too late.   I took I-15 instead of I-5 so that I wouldn't have to drive through
Los Angeles on the morning following Labor Day Weekend.   (I think that I made the
right choice.   When returning home, I would drive through L.A. when I returned
from my trip since it would be on a Saturday afternoon/night and the traffic,
hopefully, wouldn't be too heavy.)   I went north to Highway 395, near Hesperia.   I
then took Highway 58 north at Kramer.   Finally, I took Highway 99 to Bakersfield.
That's when trouble began.   I couldn't find the street in Bakersfield to continue on
my route.   And I made the mistake of not taking some type of map, either paper or
on my smart phone, so that I could get back on track.   I continued on Highway 99
until I got to Tulare.   I went into a gas station in order to both fill up the car and to
ask for directions.   The people there helped me to get back onto the highway that I
was looking for -- Highway 63 -- and eventually I was able to reach Grant Grove and
Cedar Grove.   However, I went via Highway 264 which does a lot of zigzagging in
the hills, thus taking longer than other roads/highways.   When I returned to San
Diego, I found what I believe is the most efficient route.   I'll disclose the route near
the end of this page.

Note: One thing that I'm glad that I did was to buy extra snacks and drinks that I
left in the car during the hike.   By doing that, I had things to eat and drink when I
returned to the car.   By the way, the drink was a HUGE bottle of Gatorade.   And it
was perfect!   But I was sick and tired of eating trail mix and granola bars and wish
that I had something different to eat.

I got to Grant Grove around 1 o'clock.   The cost for vehicle fees was $30, up 50
percent (or $10) from the previous year.   It takes about one hour to reach Cedar
Grove and the park/ranger station there, so I arrived at about 2 o'clock.   My cousin
spotted me driving in and I parked next to his car.   Unfortunately for him, he had to
wait about two hours for me to arrive.   ("Sorry, Tim.")   He had already purchased
both our wilderness permit ($20) and our hiking permits ($10 each).   We were lucky
that the ranger, like most rangers, was accommodating and let my cousin purchase
the wilderness permit without me being present, which is the rule -- all parties are
supposed to be present when purchasing such a permit.   About 1/2 hour later,
including the ranger at the station "laying down the law", we were off on our
backpacking trip!

I would like to point out that it was rather sad during the drive from Grant Grove to
Cedar Grove.   One of the two reasons why was because a fire had occurred about
two years before and several hillsides had no living trees on them.   And since it was
so recent, there was no new growth such as bushes or aspen trees.   The second reason
why it was a sad drive was because the trees that hadn't been affected by the fire were
being devastated by pine beetles.   It is probably the same situation as in Colorado
where the lodgepole pine trees are being killed by pine beetles -- the temperatures
during the past five-or-so winters have not been low enough (-10 degrees Farenheit?)
in order to kill sufficient numbers of the beetles.   If this reason is correct, hopefully it
will get cold enough this winter to kill off most of them.   At 4:35, we arrived at our
first campsite -- Sphinx Junction.   It was exactly a 4.1-mile hike, as stated by a sign
near the site.   As mentioned above, I told my cousin that, based upon how I
understood the trail's difficulty, I wanted to get the most difficult part finished at the
beginning.   And it worked!

We climbed approximately 1,000 feet during the hike that day.   There were many
switchbacks.   Coincidentally, it was the same trail that my cousin, his father/my
uncle, and I hiked when we went to Kings Canyon in 1999.   (Please refer to the
associated notes and photos pages on this Web site.)   By the way, there was a
bear/food container/locker in the camping area; there was no one else camped there.
That night, my cousin went to bed in his one-man tent at 8 o'clock and I did the same
in my new tent at about 8:30.   Fortunately, I was up late enough to see some stars
and I pointed out Mars to my cousin as it skimmed along a mountainside in the
distance.

September 7th
I woke up at 6:35.   I had a slight headache, either from the previous day's hike, the
elevation increase, or both.   It turned out that my inflatable pillow had a leak and
was flat.   Even though it didn't get too cold the previous night (between 40 and 45
degrees?), I was glad that I put some clothes at the bottom of my sleeping bag in
order to absorb the cold air.   I'm six feet tall, my sleeping bag is 6-1/2 feet long, so
there's space for cold air to collect at the bottom of the bag.

At 9:02, we left camp.   My cousin wanted to leave earlier, but I'm not a morning-
type person and I don't move very quickly prior to noon.   Ha! Ha!   Welcome to
Rae Lakes Loop -- about one hour into the trip, we encountered a bear.   I
estimate that it was about 4 feet tall and he/she was about 15 feet left of the trail
eating blackberries.   It didn't stop eating them as it watched us taking pictures of
him/her.   A while later, we encountered ANOTHER bear.   (Wow, they're
everywhere!   Not really.)   We didn't see this one, but we could hear it sneezing from
behind a rock that was also on the left side of the trail.   Wow, they're loud sneezers!

The hike was strenuos, as noted on the national park service's Rae Lakes Loop's Web
site.   It was more difficult hiking than the previous day, with more inclines and even
more switchbacks.   We passed 19 hikers and two men riding horses with 11 other
pack horses/mules. During the day and early evening, I counted 16 airplanes ... give
or take one or two.

We arrived at our second camping site -- Vidette Meadow -- at 4 o'clock.   So, it was a
7-hour, 9.1-hour hike that day.   That equates to an average of 1.3 miles per hour.
My cousin likes to travel at least 2 miles per hour.   So, hopefully, I could keep up
better the next day.   There were five camping areas spread out about 200 hundred
square yards and I estimate that around 20 tents could be set up within them.   There
was no fishing near them.   The John Muir trail met up with the trail, per one of the
photographs on the associated 'Pictures' page.   Our drinking water was acquired
from a brook located about 1/8th of a mile from camp.   My cousin had a handy open-
mouthed collapsable bucket that he would fill with water from the brook and could
more easily fill our squeezable, water filtration pouches.   (This would turn out to be
one of several items that my cousin had that made the trip more enjoyable.)  

Well, the trouble had begun during this second day of the adventure.   The nails on
the smallest toes of my feet had dug into both of the adjacent, fourth toes on my feet.
Damn, I had just trimmed all of my toenails two days before the trip!   Obviously, I
didn't trim them short enough.   So, it was necessary to both trim the nails even
shorter and then put bandages on the fourth toes.   Back to camping, there were 13
people at the site.   Regarding hiking, we climbed about 4,000 feet that day, as you can
tell by referencing back to the Point/Miles/Elevation chart above.   Wow, another
1,300 feet and we would have climbed one mile!   It was noticeably colder that night,
enough so that I needed to put on both another shirt and a jacket.   My cousin had
brought some Thai food to cook and eat and it turned out to be too spicy for him.   So
I finished eating it for him.   (It was no problem for me since I had returned from
living in Thailand 2-1/2 years beforehand, living there for one year and nine months.)
I had plenty of my own food, but this way, we didn't have to waste it plus he wouldn't
have to bury it.   We "hit the tents" around 15 minutes earlier than the previous
night.   Note that I wouldn't/couldn't go to sleep right away, being the late-night
astronomer-type person that I am.   So, I wrote copious notes about our adventure.
By the way, I was having a GREAT time.

September 8th
Like clockwork, I woke up at 6:35.   I (finally) got out of the tent at 6:55.   After
eating breakfast, breaking up camp, and packing up, we left at 9 o'clock.   (Sorry
again, cuz, for not being ready to go sooner.)   Since this was my first backpacking
trip of this type, I decided to collect information about the items and "tricks" that
others had and did.   Some of them included (1) Having a water bottle hose attached
from the bottle to a clip near the hiker's mouth, (2) Using walking sticks/poles in
order to balance the weight of the backpack, and (3) Installing solar panels on the
tops of backpacks that could be used to charge electronic devices.   There were
MANY more items and tricks that I'd observed and I'll be adding them to my
checklist for future trips.   I also included most of them at the end of this page.

One other "lesson that I learned" regarding the bear vault that I had rented -- this
style had three connectors that were used to lock and unlock its cover/top.   It was
necessary to use something like a coin to open and close the locks.   And they were
NOT easy to turn.   So, the first night, I discovered that I had neither coins nor
anything else that I could use to turn the connectors.   Fortunately, my cousin had
something that he was able to use in order to unlock them.   It wasn't easy, so we
decided to just leave them unlocked for the remainder of the trip.   Hopefully, the
bears weren't smart enough to tip over the container even though they couldn't smell
what was inside.

The hike this day was VERY difficult.   It involved going only 5-1/2 miles, starting at
10,540 feet elevation, going to 11,952 feet, and ending at 10,550 feet.   Also, it was on
the sun-facing side of the mountain and, during the latter half of the hike, we hiked
during the hottest time of the day.   At one point, I would decrease the length of my
strides down to toe-to-toe.   Also, I would walk about 100 yards, stop to catch my
breath (and slow down my heartbeat under four beats per second), contining with
that method until I reached the pass.

It was around 1 o'clock when I reached the top of the trail at Glen Pass.   As you can
guess, there were spectacular views.   There were about one dozen people there who
were enjoying them.   The photographs on the associated 'Pictures' page with the
captions "Glen Pass -- 11,926 feet" and "Rae Lakes In The Distance" were taken
from that spot.   So, I ate lunch there while my cousin elaborated on how long he had
been waiting for me to finally arrive.   (I didn't care.)   He also pointed out how I was
sitting in the middle of the trail and people had to walk around me.   (I didn't care.
Plus, there weren't any other spots where I could sit near him, so I parked it "in the
middle of the road.")   After hanging out there for about 15 minutes, we proceeded
on to Rae Lakes.

We arrived at Rae Lake #3 at about 3:30.   We hiked past both it and Rae Lake #2 to
get to Rae Lake #1 where we would camp that night.   There was no one there when
we arrived at about 3:45, so we were able to choose the best spots.   It took us 6 hours
and 45 minutes to hike 5.5 miles.   (Later, two other sets of hikers arrived, making it
about seven of us at that camping area.)   And this is where I started feeling it.   Pain,
that is.   Both feet were hurting, especially the left one.   The left one hurt more
because, like most people, my left foot is larger than my right foot and, as such, was
pinched more inside my hiking boots.   It was a great thing that I had brought extra
shoes to wear when I wasn't hiking.   So after choosing a place to set up my camp and
setting down my backpack and fishing pole case there, I immediately removed my
boots, examined my feet, changed my socks, and put on my sneakers (tennis shoes).
I won't go into details about the condition of my feet.   In general, they had blisters,
cuts, and bruises.   (Note: Buy larger hiking boots.)   I told my cousin about the
situation with my feet.   He told me that he knew a man who took his 20-something
year old daughter hiking a few years beforehand and that her feet were "raw" from
the experience.   I can relate!

Well, I sucked it up and set up my tent.   It's interesting how much longer it takes to
do something when you're in pain.   Afterwards, I filled my water bottles and ate
some dinner.   Soon after that, I went fishing for the first time during the trip. By the
way, the photos starting with "Devil's Tower In CA" and ending with "My Cousin's
Camp" were taken at our Rae Lakes camping area.   It is difficult to think of a single
word to describe my fishing experience.   Every time that I threw out my line, I got at
least one hit.   During the first four casts, I caught fish.   Wow, they were hungry!
And Wow -- they were small!   Of the six fish that I caught, their lengths ranged from
five inches to six inches.   Ha! Ha!   They were brookies, rainbows, and a brown (?) --
a very dark-colored trout.   And I didn't even bother being discretionary about what
I put on the line to catch them.   I had simply attached a gold-colored spoon-type lure
onto the swivel and away I went.   It would have been nice to have more of a challenge
and to catch larger fish, but it was still fun.

That night, my cousin went to bed at 7:45.   If this trip had lasted for 16 days, at that
rate, he would have been in bed on the final night at 6 o'clock.   One thing that he
pointed out was that I was getting very sunburned on the back of my neck.   I
considered putting sunscreen on it for the rest of the trip, but I don't like sunscreen.
So, I decided to put my handtowel on my neck instead, after first getting it wet in
order to help me stay cooler.   Good idea, right?   Oh, I lost my washcloth at the first
camping area, probably having left it hanging over some tree branch.   I'm glad that
I also brought a handtowel!   I also couldn't find my aspirins, sleeping pills, or
scissors.   (I later
found my scissors stuffed inside a corner of a pocket, but I never found the pills.)
That day, I counted around ten airplanes buzzing over us.   Were you wondering
about what food that I ate?   I took the same things that I always took with me during
the trips to "my lake".   I mentioned the granola bars and trail mix above.   I also
brought instant cereals and beef jerky.   Now that's roughing it!   And now you can
possibly better understand why I wrote "But I was sick and tired of eating trail mix
and granola bars and wish that I had something different to eat." above.   I entered
my tent around 8:15, updated my log book, and went to sleep at 8:30.   Hey, maybe I
would also be going to bed on our last night at 6 o'clock if this trip lasted another two
weeks!

September 9th
My notes were losing their coherency and cohesiveness starting this morning.   I
attribute it to the pain that I was experiencing with my feet.   Another couple of
things that I was experiencing during the trip was that my voice got hoarse and my
breaths were short and choppy, even when I wasn't on the trail.   I believe that I woke
up at my regular time -- 6:30ish.   I was able to move faster and we left camp at 8:48.
Wow, I was so proud that I'd shaved off 12 minutes!   My cousin wasn't impressed.
Considering my physical situation, I was less able to keep up with my cousin than I
was able to do the previous days.   And today, the hike was all downhill!   I have to
give my cousin credit because he is in better shape than me since he walks every
morning, rides a bike twice or thrice per week, surfs twice per week, and was
preparing for this trek by hiking about 6-1/2 miles up a hillside, with a backpack,
two or three times per week for about a month (?).   Well done and
inspiring!

Prior to hiking, I put moleskins on my four outer toes and the first toe on my left foot.
(The toe's nail was black and blue.   Uh-oh!)   It helped significantly, except when we
had steep declines that forced my feet into the fronts of my boots.   Nevertheless, I
made it, hiking 10 miles that day and going from 10,550 feet to 8,170 feet.   I would
like to point out that as slow as I was walking, I was passed by only four people that
day.   Meanwhile, I crossed paths with about two dozen hikers.   We arrived at
Middle Paradise Valley at 4:20.   As opposed to Rae Lakes, it is a well-wooded area.
But I guess that this issue might be obvious since we were now well below treeline,
which is around 10,000 feet.   There were three other groups camped there, totaling
around nine people.   One of them was a man hiking by himself.   About two miles
back on the trail, I had picked up a walking stick glove that someone had dropped.
About 200 yards later, I encountered my cousin and a guy who had previously passed
me.   My cousin asked me if I had seen a glove that the guy had dropped and then
they both noticed that I had the glove in my hand.   So, I gained some kharma points
that day.   Especially since he didn't compensate me ... in any way!  

Back to camping, after setting up his tent, my cousin walked over to my spot and told
me that he was going to dip his feet in the nearby creek because they were sore.   He
said that his plan was to do it for either five minutes or however long that it took for
them to get numb from the cold.   (I guessed that it would take about one minute.)
He recommended that I do the same for my feet.   Good idea.   So after I set up my
camp, I did the same.   Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!   Oh, but it eventually felt SO-O-O-O
good.   After I couldn't feel my feet, and the associated pain, anymore, I took my
typical sponge bath.   I don't know how long ago it happened, but I no longer change
from my stinky, dirty hiking clothes to clean(er) clothes until after I have either taken
a sponge bath, a shower, or something similar.   Personally, I think that it helps me to
sleep better.   After the washdown, I returned to camp and ate dinner with my cousin.
Soon after boring him by discussing astronomy-related things, he went to bed at 7:30.
Right on schedule with his decreasing bedtimes.   I stayed up longer since it would be
my last night in the mountains.   During that time, I heard an owl hooting in a nearby
tree.   Speaking of creatures, my cousin and I saw three more of them during the
hike.   He spotted a deer on a hillside about 500 yards away that he pointed out to me.
We also saw a deer and its fawn in a small meadow about 50 yards away from us.
It's funny how some baby deer will not immediately follow their mothers when
getting away from humans, instead standing there and checking out we strange
creatures.   Regarding non-creature things, I counted eleven airplanes that day.   The
low temperature that night was between 50 and 55 degrees.   At the beginning of the
trip, my cousin pointed out that he had discovered that there was a high pressure
system around our area during the first part of our trip that would keep
temperatures higher than normal for the first two or three days.   It seemed that the
system never left during our entire trip considering the weather.   Last, now that we
were below 10,000 feet, one of our neighbors had a campfire that night.   The rule in
Kings Canyon is that campfires are not allowed above 10,000 feet.   Curious -- I
would think that the rule would be the opposite since there are no trees above 10,000
feet ... timberline.   I'd like to understand the logic behind that rule.

September 10th
Once again, I don't know exactly when I woke up.   I'm guessing that it was around
6:30 again.   I DO know that we started hiking at 8:40.   The previous day's hike was
about 12-1/2 miles.   Today's would be about 10 miles.   The first thing that I did was
to "redress my wounds".   That took about ten minutes.   After breaking down camp
and eating instant cereals plus granola bars for the last time in a while, I informed
my cousin that it wasn't a problem for him to not wait for me along the trail.   He had
informed me that he needed to get home somewhat early that night because he had
plans for the next day.   (My plan for the next day was to recover from this trip.   And
only that!)   So, there was a whole lotta limping going on that day.   I could tell by the
look on people's faces as we crossed paths that they were thinking something like
'Wow, this guys' in trouble!'   But I knew that I had only three choices -- (1) Finish
the hike, (2) Request a horse to pick me up, or (3) Purchase property and live there
for the rest of my life ... or at least until I recovered.

While on the hike, I encountered a woman who was taking a video with her smart
phone.   When she finished, she said that I was in her video.   I told her that I would
buy her a new camera if I had broken the lens.   I asked here where her father was
from, who was with her and appeared to be about 70 years old.   She said that he was
from Korea.   (The south side.   I think.)   It reminded me about what my cousin had
told me -- approximately one-third of the people on the Rae Lakes Loop were from
Europe.   He also pointed out that when he traveled to Europe for work, he'd learned
that the German people were crazy about hiking.   I believe him based upon the
languages spoken and the accents that I'd heard from the people that I'd
encountered.

I reached Paradise/Bubbs Jct. at about 12:30.   It is two miles from Road's End -- the
end of the trail -- and the point where hikers choose to go either clockwise or "the
wrong way".   Two miles?!   Still?!   Oh, I wasn't going make it.   But I did.   A few
hundred yards down the trail from there, I found a rock to sit on that was in the
shade.   I pulled off my boots and socks and let me feet breath while I ate lunch.   (My
apologies to the two women who walked past me ... if they saw my feet.   If they DID
see my feet, I probably would have seen THEIR lunches.)   After about ten minutes, I
"got dressed" and resumed hiking.   Two hours (Two hours) later, and that was
moving at the breakneck speed of one mile per hour, I arrived at my rental car.   I
nearly kissed it.   Even though it was a rental car.   My cousin had left two notes for
me.   The first one stated that he was going to take a shower and then eat at the cafe.
The second read that the cafe was overloaded with people, the showers were
closed until 3 o'clock, and he was going to forego showering, eating, and just
return home.   The time of the second note was 2:30.   I arrived at the parking lot at
2:33.   D'oh!   After putting the backpack in the back seat, I arranged things in the
vehicle and started heading home.

Regarding heading home, as I stated above, I knew that I didn't want to leave the
Garden Grove area the same way that I had entered the area.   So, I had two choices.
I could either drive to Fresno, which would involve going an extra 50 or 60 miles out
of the way to the northwest, or find a way to drive through another city, in this case,
Visalia, and hopefully reduce the length and time of the drive.   By the way, the time
of the drive would be between 6-1/2 and 8 hours.   (A drive THAT long was the LAST
thing that I needed after hiking for about six hours and ten miles.)   I decided to drive
via Visalia and I think that I made the correct decision.   The particular path that I
took was Highway 180 west to Highway 63, south to Highway 198, west to Highway
99, and south on I-5 to "The Promised Land".   I got home around 9:30.   And do you
know what I did?   Nothing.   Well, I did take the backpack and most of my things
inside.   But other than leaving all of it sitting on the living room floor and taking a
shower, nothing.   And doing nothing never felt so good!

Epilogue
Here are the highlights and "lowlights" about the trip --
Highlights --

1. Seeing a bear
2. Catching fish
3. Going to a new place
4. Seeing people's innovations
5. Breathing fresh air
6. Getting out of the city

Created: September 13, 2016

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