Lower Paradise Valley, Kings Canyon, California

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:23:00 -0700

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A Walk from Roads End, Kings Canyon, to Lower Paradise Valley"Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse, and --Thou Beside me, singing in the Wilderness -- And Wilderness is Paradise enow." -- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald

Quite different than the wilderness that Persian poet Omar Khyyam wrote of. But the trail from Roads End in Kings Canyon to the Lower Paradise Valley offers great vistas -- from towering cliffs to the awesome force of Woods Creek flowing alongside.

On July 3rd, Sarbajit Ghosal and I hiked the approx. 13-mile out and back trail. It was a good day, cool at 6:oo in the morning when we began. Even at mid day, when it turned warm and we could feel the rocky parts of the trail radiating heat, it was not punishingly hot.

The trail is not very demanding, first two miles mostly flat with a few rocky segments. Many hikers go only as far as Mist Falls, about halfway to Lower Paradise Valley campground. After Mist Falls, the trail becomes rocky. We met backpackers who were returning from doing the Rae Lake Loop, about 46 miles. One group said it took them 3 days -- hardy souls.

A few pictures follow. Encountered three rattle snakes, the first one in the morning soon after we began our walk at Roads End. After I took a picture of the snake, my Canon Powershot S3 stopped working. Error message read "Lens error. Restart camera." Tried restarting but it did not fix the problem. It was SG's Nikon Coolpix P500 that was used for the rest of the trip.

SG at Roads End Trailhead

The first rattle snake, ugh

We forded a number of such gullies soon after Roads End