Miles hiked: 22.6.
Don't worry, the place I'm camped is much nicer than it sounds.
Took a little extra time to get hiking this morning trying to figure out a way to have better padding between me and the bear can* in backpack. With the bear can and 9 days of food my pack is just about maxed out in terms of volume and comfortable weight. There isn't quite enough padding against my tailbone, so I fiddled around a while getting my sleeping pad arranged to provide more cushion.
Once I got hiking, the trail climbed up the gradual canyon of a side creek to the Kern River. After a few miles this canyon widened into a sloping Meadow, and I saw my first bear of the trip there, ambling along eating grass like some big mountain cow.
The canyon narrowed again and continued for another couple miles before spilling me out into one of the most magnificent Sierra meadows I've ever seen. Called Becks Meadow, this was an arm of a broad section of the valley the Kern runs through. It was 3 or 4 miles long and a third of a mile wide, with sloping forested hills rising all around. Sage grew along the upper edges, and grass and sedges were down in the lowest areas. It was just a huge wide open space with just one little farm cabin or something tucked up along one side. The trail went along the edge for a mile or so then climbed up and over a little hill to I guess avoid someone's grazing lease. From up on the hill I could see a herd of cows standing along the banks of he Kern, in the water that I was about to go drink.
Dropping back down into the main Kern valley, the scene just kept getting better. This was a bigger valley/Meadow with excellent high sagebrush country hills rising up to the east. I reached the river and sat under the bridge where several hundred Cliff Swallows were busy building their nests. Easy and Unicorn showed up and we brunches together and I got to tell them about the swallows and also about the Killdeer wandering along the river and the Mountain Bluebird perched on the bridge.
The three of us headed out from there together, the trail now climbing up out of the Kern Valley on a tributary canyon. By now it was starting to warm up a bit, but nothing like at lower elevations. The sun was intense, but it was still plenty comfortable in the shade and a little chilly when the wind blew. This canyon led up the southern flanks of Olancha Peak, which is just over 12000 feet tall. After a brief siesta near the top of this canyon, where I saw the first Marmot of the trip, the trail contoured around the steep east face of the mountain, then wrapped down around the northern ridge toward a small east-west pass. The habitat was park like Lodgepole Pine and occasional firs of some sort. As I approached that pass, I heard the approach of a fighter jet, which we've been hearing on and off for a week or so, and looked up just in time to see it go streaking through the pass, seemingly only a couple hundred feet above the trees and big granite boulders.
Down in this pass, which is really better described as a broad saddle, there were beautiful big boulders and fins and wind eroded pinnacles of granite scattered among the forest. I passed a few more meadows as the sun began sinking and casting long shadows and beams of light through the forest.
Reached camp just about sunset and found a 8 or so other hikers there hanging g out and setting up. We ate dinner together, up above camp amongst some boulders of various size, joking about rotten sausages in people's food bags and walking big miles in socks and flip-flops, while the alpenglow blazed on the ridge above us.
*In case anyone is t familiar with bear cans, they are plastic or carbon fiber cylinders that are bear proof. Bears getting people food has become a big problem in several parts of the Sierra. When bears learn that backpackers can be a source of easy food, they have the tendency to become very habituated to being around humans and may become aggressive. This can result in very unhappy encounters between people and bears, and may lead to bears needing to be shot. For the next few hundred miles through the high Sierra, bear cans are required for anyone making overnight trips. Many thru hikers complain about being forced to carry the extra weight (about 2 pounds), but I think this is sound management policy. I think it's good for the parks to be trying to prevent a problem from occurring, rather than just fixing it once it does.
Birds:
Stellar's Jay
Bushtit
Northern Flicker
House Wren
Rock Wren
Pinyon Jay
Western Scrub-jay
Black-headed Grosbeak
Spotted Towhee
Mountain Chickadee - quick double note on cheese
Oregon Junco
Pygmy Nuthatch
Lazuli Bunting
Western Bluebird
Olive-sided Flycatcher
House Finch
American Robin
Clark's Nutcracker
Green-tailed Towhee
Common Raven
Western Meadowlark
Cassin's Finch
Brown Creeper
Brewer's Sparrow
Cliff Swallow
Killdeer
Hairy Woodpecker
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Hammond's Flycatcher?
Sooty Grouse
Fox Sparrow?
Red-breasted Nuthatch
American Kestrel
Common Poor-will
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