High Sierra Topix

Due to the Horse Creek Fire.

SEKI NP:

Effective Monday, July 23, wilderness permit holders will not be able to start any trips from Mineral King trailheads until further notice. Walk-up permits will not be issued. Visitors currently on wilderness trips will be allowed to exit as planned. For questions about wilderness permits, please call (559) 565-3766 or e-mail seki_wilderness_office@nps.gov

Here's the update from yesterday.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks News Release
For Immediate Release
Fire Information Updates: (559) 565-3704
E-mail: seki_fire_info@nps.gov
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Horse Creek Fire Update (July 25, 2018)
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. July 25, 2018, 8:30 a.m. – The Horse Creek Fire in the John Krebs Wilderness Area of Sequoia National Park remains at 30 acres in size and is 50% contained. Containment lines have been completed around the perimeter of the fire. Crews will continue to strengthen and secure the line to increase containment throughout the day while also mopping up hot spots. Residents and visitors on Mineral King Road can expect to see isolated smokes inside the containment lines for at least the next few days.

Helicopters will continue to be used today to shuttle crews and supplies to the remote fire location, as well as to provide water drops to assist with extinguishing hot spots. While the threat of thunderstorms still exists, a predicted stable air mass over the area will continue to decrease this threat over the fire area.

The Mineral King Valley remains under a Fire Advisory. Due to the increased amount of fire personnel traffic on the Mineral King Road:

· Effective Friday, July 27, the park will begin issuing wilderness permits for Mineral King trails that remain open. Permits can be picked up as early as 1:00 p.m. the day before entry. A limited number of walk-up permits will be available.
· The Atwell-Hockett Trail and the Tar Gap Trail remain closed.
· Mineral King Campgrounds remain open but could close with little notice based on changes in fire behavior, smoke, and air quality.

For questions about wilderness permits, please call (559) 565-3766 or e-mail seki_wilderness_office@nps.gov.

At this time neither the road nor any structures are directly threatened by the fire, and the road remains open. However, visitors are strongly encouraged to consider recreation options other than Mineral King in order to minimize traffic on the road.

Tulare County offers a free automated alert service that issues notices of unsafe conditions and warnings to residents on the platform of their choice (e.g., SMS, email, landline). To sign up, visit https://alerttc.com/

For more information on the Horse Creek Fire, visit https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5984/.

If I can offer my two cents about vigilance and flexibility in trip planning in light of this fire:

We were scheduled to leave out of Mineral King on the Eagle/Mosquito Lake trail for our annual father/son backpacking trip on Tuesday, July 24 (7 dads, 7 boys) to Mosquito Lakes. I checked for weather, trail, and fire conditions on Friday, July 20, and learned of this fire in Mineral King. I spoke with the rangers at the Mineral King station at length about the fire on Friday and Saturday. Our trailhead was still open as of Saturday, but based on the ranger's description of the air quality/smoke conditions in the Mineral King valley, I decided that the prudent thing to do was to call an audible for our group and change plans at the last minute.

After feverishly checking trailhead availability on the SEKI website, and doing my best to research prospective trails, my best option (given our numbers) seemed to be Copper Creek out of Roads End in Kings Canyon. I was able to speak with a ranger at the Wilderness Office after several tries throughout the day. There were 10 available reservations for Copper Creek, so I had my permit transferred over to that trail, with the hope that we would be able to secure 4 more walk up permits from the Roads End ranger station. Luckily, we were able to get those spots, too. (There were a lot of Mineral King and Yosemite refugees trying to get permits because of the fires. I bet the SEKI rangers are certainly earning their pay in dealing with this.)

I clearly made the right decision, now seeing that all trailheads in Mineral King were closed on Monday, July 23. We would have been screwed if we showed up that Monday only to learn that we could not go out on the trail. I guess the moral of the story is use common sense, respect mother nature, and be flexible and willing to change plans at the last moment given trail conditions. It paid off for us.

(The Copper Creek trail was a real butt-kicking challenge for us, but we had a fantastic week with stunning scenery, great weather, a bear encounter, and phenomenal swimming in Granite Basin and at Roads End, but that is another story.)

The Copper Creek trail was a real butt-kicking challenge for us

Which is why there was 10 slots available.
Hope there is a TR coming.

Exactly! LOL! I will do my best to submit a trail report within the week.

Exactly! LOL! I will do my best to submit a trail report within the week.

Haven't seen Granite Lake Basin in a while.