|
|
|
|
Jennie Lakes Wilderness
Jennie Lakes Wilderness
Links:
|
July 2nd - July 4th, 2000
13.4 miles 2720 vertical feet 10 hours, 53 minutes Rating: 10/10
|
|
|
Directions:
From Fresno, drive east on Highway 180 toward Sequoia/Kings Canyon. Just after the
park entrance, take the right fork toward Sequoia (as opposed to the left fork
toward Kings Canyon). Drive 7 miles and turn left onto Forest Service Road 14S11,
toward Big Meadows. Drive 4 miles, past Big Meadows, and turn right onto the
dirt road just past the bridge over Big Meadows Creek. Stay on the main dirt road the
whole way, for about 1.5 miles. You will see a lesser road to the right and
then left; ignore them. 4-wheel drive is appreciated here, but a sedan is okay.
View Driving Map
|
|
|
View full map |
(Note: the trail route above was created post-hike using electronic maps and was not created
using GPS, so it might not be completely accurate. It's probably pretty close, though.)
The rangers at the Grant Grove visitor center assured us we could leave food
in our car at the trailhead (bears weren't a big problem). One of them brought
out a map which showed Jennie Lake as a 7-mile hike. This didn't jive with the
5 miles I'd seen everywhere else. It wasn't until later that I realized the 7
miles was from the Big Meadows trailhead, while we were starting from the Fox
Meadow trailhead, which accounted for the discrepancy.
The drive to the Fox Meadow trailhead is not for the timid. It's paved most of
the way, but the last 1.5 miles is on a bumpy dirt road. To make matters worse,
we took a wrong turn up an even worse road which brought us to a dead end. If
you read the directions from a popular hiking book, it says to make a left and
then an immediate right. This is completely misleading, however, as what you
really need to do is continue straight on the main dirt road, avoiding the
fork off to the right, then the fork off to the left immediately following. In
a sense, the directions are correct, but they're completely misleading. We
took the second left fork (thinking it was the first left turn) and that was our
mistake.
A 4 wheel drive would definitely be in order the next time we go here, but we
eventually made it to the trailhead in one piece. There were already about a
dozen cars already there, although 3 of them left just as we were getting
ready to start our hike. One of them said to us "have fun!" And we would.
Just for kicks I measured our blood oxygen saturation. I'd recently purchased
a pulse oximeter and was interested in trying it out. The parking lot sits at
7880 feet, and we'd slept at about 4500 feet elevation the previous two nights.
My blood oxygen saturation reading was 91%, and Jean's was 84%. This probably
doesn't mean much, but it might be useful to know these values in the future.
|
Related Pages:
|
|