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So, I have inexplicably gotten 3 emails (two from people I don’t know) asking about the Circle of Solitude trip. Generally just asking for the basic route/information on it. I am going to use this sentence here to plug the usefulness of the comment box in cases like this, instead of email please feel free to use either but comments are cool!

Now onto the subject at hand. The Solitude Circle is generally as follows and I do plan on wearing my brand new Adama for President T-shirt out there, hopefully on the summit of Triple Divide peak.  There are many options as is always the case in the Sierra Nevada, this is just a general outline.

This one launches from the Bubbs Creek trail head, right at Road’s End in Sequoia/Kings Canyon.  This is one of the more popular trail heads on the west side of the Sierra Nevada, partially because of the easy access to the Rae Lakes loop from here.  So from Bubbs creek you head to the Sphinx creek junction and head south over Avalanche pass.

Options: from here you can head into either Deadman or Cloud canyon.  From Deadman Canyon you can cross Copper Mine pass (just north of peak 12,2345) into Cloud Canyon or take Elizabeth pass trail (we’ll ignore this one for the CoS).  Either way you go, you have to get over to the south-east side of the Colby Pass trail near Gallats Lake.  For this trip, I’d like to hit Triple Divide Peak, seeing it from the High Sierra Trail was inspirational and intimidating.

From Gallats lake you head east towards Junction Meadow, bypassing Milestone Bowl and Kern Point.  Once you get to Junction meadow you’re on the High Sierra Trail for just a few marvelous minutes as you head north.  The HST then breaks East up to join the Pacific Crest Trail, but on the Circle of Solitude you keep heading north, staying away from the highway of people that the PCT is comparatively.   Heading north, you’ll eventually come to Lake South America.

At LSA you have another good set of options.  You can head south and east towards the PCT and when you hit that you head north again over Forrester pass.  You stay on the PCT for quite a bit, until you get to Vidette Meadow where you head back west towards the Bubbs creek trail head and completion.  The disadvantage to this PCT option being that you have so much time on the PCT with all those people.

I think the true spirit of a hike entitled the Circle of Solitude almost requires you to head straight north from Lake South America instead.  Heading north you’ll cross over Harrison pass, which is lower in elevation than Forrester, but less maintained (if at all).  From Harrison pass you start heading north-west from here to Lake Reflection and then straight north to the Bubbs creek junction and then again west, back towards the trail head and completion.

So that in summary is the Circle of Solitude.  Quite a bit of it is off trail, or at least has the option of being off trail, it’s all remote and lightly used.  I’m looking forward to it and recently found out that Gant has been successful in getting time off for the trip, but that Jared won’t be attending this time.

PS. Adama for president.

I worked harder yesterday than I have since the last time I wore cammies. Which coincidentally, I wore again yesterday and amazingly enough fit into after 10 years. I’m going to be purposefully vague in my wording and descriptions as I’d rather not have this page be easily googled.

It all started at 3:40am (a familiar time to anyone who has worn cammies) when my alarm went off. I got dressed and went to meet my team for the day. I got paired with 7 SWAT guys from the local county and was going to be the safest man on the planet for today, since I had a full team of over armed and over armored bodyguards. Sure they weren’t supposed to be my personal bodyguards but I was safe either way. So, we loaded into a helicopter and went to our ’site’. We disembarked and the helo left to handle more teams and sites. SWAT cleared the scene and then we got to work.

This was the hard part, my god I haven’t worked this kind of purely physical job in 10 years. We had to cut (I personally cut almost 600) plants, then hike them over to the pickup point and stack them. Then the bird would come over and lift them when we had a full load. We worked up about 7 full loads I think, so each one of those loads involved the helo hovering above us for a few minutes as the load was secured and lifted. If you’ve never been under a hovering helo; its loud, its windy and its dirty. Not to mention painful, with all the dirt being propelled at bb gun speed impacting every bit of bare skin on your body. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome feeling, but you need a shower after just one helo lift, let alone 7.