Alta Peak (11207')

Now starting from where I left, we stopped for dinner at about 9pm at Black Bear diner in Los Banos (Pacheco Rd). The SF bay area group consisting of Jugal, Vishram and I had to meet the other group from LA area – Neisha, Kelvin, Jai, Drew and Ashy by 10:30pm but since the LA group were running late, we decided to goof around a bit. After dinner, we drove to Sequoia. We were at the park entrance at 12:15am and reached Wolverton parking lot at 1:10am. We decided to hike in and camp along the way but setup emergency camp right near the car and rode the night out (Can’t put down the details here). At 7am we were all up and ready to leave. At 7:50am we were at the trailhead starting our daylong hike.

The Wolverton trailhead at 7000 feet has a lot of parking but I assume it would run out of space quite often since it’s easily accessible and due to the large number of people visiting Sequioa NP. There are park shuttles that ply all around Sequoia. The hike starts with a couple of steps up the trail putting you into wilderness. The trail is quite shaded for almost all the way till we hit the tree line. Fern made the Sequoia’s and other tall trees their home. Sunlight pierced the vegetation providing a very beautiful, peaceful and serene scape for the onlooker. The beauty here rejuvenated me. In minutes, runners running the same trail were passing us. They were blazing up the slopes. I so wanted to join them running up the hill but my better judgment prevented me from doing that. Our group pace slowly caused the group to divide into three nuclear ones – Jugal, Vishram & Jai at the front, Drew, Ashy in the middle and Kelvin, Neisha and I sweeping the rear.

All along the way, there was the rushing sound of a creek somewhere in the vicinity. At 9:15am, the last of us reached Panther’s gap at 8550’ or so in altitude. After climbing numerous flower meadows and a steep climb to the ridge the picturesque sight of the valley in front of us delighted me. Now looking at the map, I can tell that we were looking at the middle fork valley and granite outcroppings of Castle rock in the San Joaquin valley. We took a break here for refreshments and pictures. I wasn’t getting any cardio and so decided to head up with Jugal for a while. We started from Panther’s gap at around 9:35am and steamed our way up the trail. I stopped around to take a couple of pictures. Jugal was fast and did not dilly-dally around for pictures. The trail now went through the conifers and was climbing steadily.

At 9300’ we crossed the intersection with the Alta Meadow trail. Just before this we also had some fun time trying to find the trail and trying to make trail markers. This I felt was quite funny. Thanks to Drew, we were back on the main trail. I slowed down from this point on owing to my knee pain that was slowly surfacing. Jugal and Vishram stormed up quite fast quite some time ago. They were trying to hit the top by noon. I was being accompanied by Ashy. Jai and Kelvin moved ahead to catch up with the two. Drew and Neisha took the rear. I