Kern-Kaweah and Kaweah Basins

Morning near camp looking over the Kern-Kaweah River and up canyon.

Base Camp

Kern-Kaweah and Kaweah Basins via Colby Pass, September, 2000.

Day 5: Another typical clear and sunny Sierra morning! We wasted little time blowing through breakfast and chores before packing a small daypack for our hike into Kaweah Basin. The day before on the granite dome shoulder I scrutinized our route carefully before we decided which approach to take. We decided to take the closest high route, which turned out to be the correct decision. After making our way down to the end of the granite dyke, we hit the trail at a good pace, and shortly the trail began to drop down off the "step" our camp was on to the next one below us. As usual, the trail was a good one of the narrow low-use wilderness variety and it threaded its way downward through bush, rocks and sparse trees.

From the end of the next meadow and glacial "step", the  river consolidated where we found a good easy dry ford..

It did not take long to reach the good-sized swampy meadow, which we reached after breaking out of a grove of trees. I had not seen anything that looked like a camp area, nor was this area nearly as appealing for camping as our current camp.