Circle the Cirque Crest

Kid Peak shows its lofty head (11,458 feet), and the Kid Creek valley can be seen ahead, above which and somewhere below this point shown above was our camp for the night in the Blanco. Here bush forced us accross the Kings River to find swifter passage. Our average pace was a crawl.

From Dawn to Dusk

Circle The Cirque Crest - By D.W.Donehoo (All rights reserved)

During the last hours my legs were beyond tired, and I was making small mistakes in technique that were entirely due to fatigue and inability to execute properly. We needed to rest, and soon. It was now getting late, and we had been on the move for about 12 hours. Across the stream was what looked like a campsite. We made the logical decision: we would cross and camp for the night, and even that was not without effort. First we had to get our wading shoes on, again, get down the steep bank to the river, cross the swift stream, again, and climb the steep bank on the other side. Dave forged ahead, and I shortly after followed. There was an old campsite there complete with a fire-ring, which we made no use of. The tent site was not exactly level, but we were too tired to care. We made camp as quickly as possible in the rapidly failing light, ate our dinner and cleaned up in darkness, and went to bed. I think we both went to sleep with a certain amount of dread for the coming day. Without a doubt during the day I coped with feelings along the lines of, "What the heck have we gotten ourselves into?" I looked forward to the morning only as the means to escape the canyon and get back to well-used trail, but in the meantime we did not look forward to the bush and talus that still stood in our way. We fell into an uneasy sleep.