High Sierra Topix

Hi,

Long time lurker here. I have been enjoying your TRs while limiting ourselves to short walks near the bay area. Now the kids are a bit older, we are venturing out further and would appreciate your advices.

We just came back from our first family camping trip to Sierra. We climbed up the little dome to the back of the Kirkwood campground and I spotted the nice Cascade of the Capers creek to the north. I figure it would be really nice to take my kids to camp on the granite nearby https://caltopo.com/m/F821. They are good hikers and enjoy scrambling. But the younger one is only three and half so I want to choose a good route. Any suggestions?

swimmerd

This is a very short hike. My recommendation is that you take it yourself, alone, and find the best route. It's just route finding over the granite behind the campground--and it might be easier to get there by going around the small granite ridge, rather than going over it.

Because of the granite, it's hard to pick an exact route on a topo map. The whole area looks possible, but all it takes it one nice 8 foot cliff, and you route doesn't work.

Or you can invite the kids along for an adventure, and have them help you find the route! From what I can see. this whole thing well less than a mile from the campground loop.

We took our kids at about that age from Woods lake to Round top lake, which is practically next door to your original destination. I think I carried a 2 year old in a kid carrier on my back, and the 5 year old walked on a dayhike. Years later, Round top became our go-to for introducing kids to backpacking. This doesn't answer your question, but this might give you another idea--maybe for a year or two down the road.

Thanks to both balzaccom and kpeter. Our kids already have done a couple of on-trail backpacking. I am looking for short off-trail ones that also could be away from the crowd. Thus the question.

I think Balzaccom''s suggestion is probably the best. It should not be too difficult --- I will just need to budget time to figure it out myself ahead of time.