High Sierra Topix

You could do Wandering Daisy's suggested trip from any of three trailheads: Crescent Meadow, Wolverton, or Alta. That would increase your likelihood of snagging a permit, on such a busy weekend.

I suspect permitting will be an issue as they haven't gotten back to me yet.

If we go it is really 5 nights: 1 at the trailhead, 1 pinto, 2 five lakes area, 1 columbine.

Test hike w/ packs did have ~2k elevation gain (and same descent), and while there was soreness it was more along the lines of "yes I was not in the office yesterday" not anything terrible (I foolishly walked 15 miles barefoot in the sand once and couldn't make my calves work for like 3 days afterward, oops.) Have some more test day hikes lined up including 13 mile +3900' elevation gain one.

But yes, with no permit then we'll have to do some alternate planning. I will hopefully hear from them soon. Other spots in Kings Canyon, Hoover, Desolation Wilderness all are on the possible list. Really anything high sierra. Which of course is why I'm here. Will definitely be looking up peoples suggestions and I appreciate them! Thanks!

Have you checked the availability on the website?

http://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/r ... bility.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm waiting on my confirmation right now for June 29th-July 5.

It took more than two weeks before I called, and they had not received my app yet. I had to submit a second one, which I thought I got a response from - they finally opened and processed the first one and contacted me about it a week after I sent the second.

So don't be surprised if you don't hear back soon. For some reason they are slammed with requests this year. Don't remember ever having a problem with this in SEKI before...

A very belated follow up - we ended up not doing the trip out of Mineral King as we had concerns about getting permits and timing which seemed like they would be problematic. Of course we cleverly decided to do a different longer route which ended up being more challenging. We did the 50 mile loop out of Hoover Wilderness into Yosemite and back. Twin lakes -> Peeler Lake -> Benson Lake -> Matterhorn Canyon Junction (more or less) -> Crown Lake -> out. Was a fantastic trip, though we both agreed it was more strenuous than our ideal. Incredibly scenic wonders around every corner. I think our sweet spot is hitting camp an hour or two after lunch so there is time to do more local exploration, vs the macro exploration of putting on the miles. Not that we had any problems, it was just quite tiring with all the elevation change. I have some GPS tracks for a few days somewhere on my phone but the up down of the trail plus general elevation changes was pretty big. Trekking poles were a big win!

For photos here is a short 'best of'
http://chufi.500px.com/2014_hoover_yosemite" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And here is the more extensive day by day if people are interested.
https://500px.com/chufi/sets/2014_07_03 ... mite_day_1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://500px.com/chufi/sets/2014_07_04 ... mite_day_2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://500px.com/chufi/sets/2014_07_05 ... mite_day_3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://500px.com/chufi/sets/2014_07_06 ... mite_day_4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://500px.com/chufi/sets/2014_07_07 ... mite_day_5" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;