The next morning we headed 15 miles down the road to the trailhead for Canyon Creek Trail. The trail, as its name implies, follows a "creek" up through a canyon and ultimately leads to two high mountain lakes, about 10 miles up the canyon. The rangers had told us that unless we wanted to hike in the snow (we didn't) we would only be able to get to the Lower Meadows, about 5 miles up the creek. There was one creek crossing near the beginning of the trip, but other than that it should be a moderate hike. We still hadn't decided how far or how long we planned to stay along the trail. Chris had slept on his neck wrong on the first night, and was unable to turn his head to the right hardly at all. But he took some ibuprofen and said he'd be alright.
So we took off down the trail. After about a quarter of a mile down the trail, we reached the creek crossing. I would like to just remind you guys of our little adventure last year at Kennedy Meadows. During that trip last summer, we got a little lost (we have since purchased a GPS unit) and had to cross a raging river on a log to get back to the trail. That said, I was not excited about the idea of crossing this stream. For one thing, the water was ice cold, seriously I doubt it was more than 1/2 a degree above freezing. We always carry our Teva sandals for water crossings, so we stopped to take off our boots and change into sandals for the trip across. The first part of the crossing wasn't too bad, the water was cold, but only a little above ankle deep. The real trick was getting across the knee-deep hole on the far side of the creek, where the current was stronger and the rocks harder to navigate. I made several attempts to cross this section, but each time I tried to take a step I came really close to losing my balance. I know, you're thinking it's only knee deep water, how bad can it be?! But, remember, I have a huge backpack strapped on and I really don't want to sleep in a wet sleeping bag!! The difficult part is when you start to lose your balance and try to compensate by shifting your weight, the weight of the bag also shifts and starts to knock you off balance again. I had to give up and return to shore and wait for Chris (who had been taking my picture-to my frustration) to help. We ended up deciding that the two pole approach was going to be our best bet at getting across. So we both went halfway, then I took both walking sticks and navigated my way across the hole, then once nearly to shore, handed the sticks back to Chris, who took his turn to cross. Once safely across we took a few moments to warm our frozen little toes and then put on our boots and headed up the creek.
Crossing Canyon Creek
The trail wasn't too bad. It had a moderate incline most of the trip the first day of hiking, and we made it about 2 miles up the trail in just a couple of hours, even with stopping to cross the creek and eating lunch. We found a nice spot to camp about 2.25 miles from the trailhead. It already had a fire ring built and was only about 50 yards from the river, making it ideal for getting water. We decided to set up camp despite that fact that it was still only late afternoon. After setting up the tent, we decided to explore our surroundings a bit and headed down to the river (it's Canyon Creek, but as far as I'm considered-it's a river!). On our way, we passed a snake, but didn't think too much of it. We spent some time exploring the creek bed, purified some water for dinner and washed up a bit (very, very cold water). On our way back to camp, I nearly stepped on our snake friend, and he let me know it-he started rattling his tail!! I had never seen a rattle snake before and wasn't happy that I had come so close to getting bit by one on my first encounter! He slithered away into the bushes, but it was a good 15 minutes before my heart rate returned to normal! We had a couple more sightings of rattlesnakes, it turns out that there are at least two that enjoyed sunbathing along the path to the river from our campsite, and we had to be really careful to watch for them on our way to or from the water. While Chris took pictures along the river, I made a campfire and started dinner (freeze-dried chili with macaroni).
Canyon Creek
On Saturday we decided to leave our camp set up and take a day hike further up the trail. Chris' neck was still bothering him and we didn't think he should carry his pack any further than he had to. We hiked another 2.5 miles up the trail to the Lower Meadows. Along our way we got some great views of the canyon, including several waterfalls. It was really beaufitul. There were also some really pretty wildflowers along the trail as well. We ran into some other hikers along the way, but it wasn't too crowded, especially when you consider that it was Memorial Weekend.
Once we returned to camp that afternoon we decided to hike back out. We had hiked back about as far as we could go before hitting snow, and Chris' neck was still hurting him. We figured we needed to get him a better pillow or more likely find a bed to sleep on tonight. We packed up camp and headed back out, again crossing the stream, although with a little more confidence this time. In total we hiked/backpacked 10 miles in two days, not too bad.
We found a little cabin to stay at for the night not far from the trailhead. It was nice to take a hot shower and eat food that didn't come in a freeze-dried package! We both slept hard that night. We decided to drive over to the Redwood Coast (above Eureka) on Sunday. We found a place to camp - Patrick's Point - that was right on the coast, nestled in the Redwoods. It was a really nice little campground. We had picked up Chris a pillow at Target and he thought he could handle the ground again. Before we settled in at camp, however, we took the afternoon to explore a bit of the Redwood National Forest. It was just beautiful. We decided we have to go back and backpack there-most likely along Redwood Creek. We did a short hike in the redwoods, where we took our time to enjoy the scenery and Chris took a lot of pretty pictures. We watched the sunset over the ocean and baked potatoes and made chili over the campfire. It was a good last night of camping.
Pictures in Redwood National Forest
We headed home early Monday morning. The drive back was long, although we broke it up a little at the end by stopping at a couple of our favorite wineries on the way home!
View more pictures on Chris' blog
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