South Fork (of the Kaweah River) Trail, Garfield Sequoia Grove, and A Snowy Camp

Updated: April 12, 2015
Post By: Matthew Hengst

April 11th & 12th, 2015
[Pics] [GPS]

This was another precious open weekend between the end of WTC and the start of the Spring AMP course and I was itching to get out to the Sierra. (Also the 2015 Memorial Day Massacre is coming quickly!)

Last weekends 3 day trip to Domelands had been fun but it's a fairly arid area particularly this year. So this weekend we looked at the westside.

The nominal goal of this weekend was to grab Quinn Mountain from the South Fork of the Kaweah River trailhead.

I've been here once before when I did the SPS peak Homer's Nose but at the time I'd done so little I barely had a concept of where it was. I drove in at night, hiked from 5 in the morning until 9:30 pm with a Sierra Club group, passed out, and drove home. I remember the poison oak and rather liking the campground.

Having been back now I can say the South Fork Campground is one of my favorites. It's a ways back there and the last section of road feels like it's a hole cut through vegetation in places. The actual sites are well laid out and its right by the Kaweah River. There's bear boxes and a single pit toilet.

We got in late and slept out on the ground.

The trailhead is just past the campground where the road dead ends. It climbs quickly and steadily through lush vegetation

There was some of the poison oak I remembered but since we were on a trail (vs the cross country slog for Homers Nose) it was less of an issue.

Everything was going great and we were in high spirits wishing we had more days to spend out here. And then we hit snow.

It wasn't that we didn't expect some snow but there was more up here than we had expected. From how powdery it was it probably all came from the storm that had hit right after we finished the Domelands trip.

Initially it wasn't that bad but we'd all worn lighter boots and soon they were soaking wet. Also clouds had moved in making things a bit gloomy.

We ran into another group up there in similar circumstances that had decided to take a nap and head back down to camp. We kept going hoping that once we got over the ridge to Hockett Lakes maybe it would be clearer.

Yea, didn't happen. All the snow plus the clouds that blew in had it feeling more like winter than this years WTC Snow Camp.

We were looking for a way across the South Fork of the Kaweah to get up to Hockett Lakes when we came across a cow camp with a fire pit and dry ish logs to sit on. We were sold.

It took a bit of work to get the fire going but eventually we had a nice size blaze to cook next to.

We slept on the snow but only an inch or two. Also without the wind like last weekend it wasn't actually that cold though it did get below freezing.

We had plans to head for Quinn Peak to the east before hiking out but with the amount of snow we decided that was not going to be feasible and instead continued to try and dry our boots off.

We had breakfast but due to a mishap ran out of butane so breakfast was a little undercooked and lacking in coffee. *sigh*

The snow was melting quickly as we headed down and by the time we got to Garfield Grove again it was mostly clear. Another day and this trip would have gone a bit smoother.

Homers Nose is the bump on the far right. For some reason SPS picked the less interesting bump of the two.

The normal SPS route I did last time was actually a bit of a slog. At some point I'm planning to come back here and do it from Cahoon Rock walking the ridge out. Maybe take an extra day or two and do the ridge to Moses Mountain as well.