I left from home after work and got to Rincon camp around 10pm, I t'was bleary eyed and should have had a better look where I threw my mattress down as I was sleeping in a field of cow pies
The next day I did my long postponed day hike down to the NF Kern river via Peppermint Creek Trail. The trail shown on the map have seen little / no traffic in many many years.
Previously this was accessible by hiking through private property in section 35 but this has been closed to public use for some time. I skirted the PP on the south and east, the trail is nice with a few down trees and boulders that have rolled onto the trail but it's easy to follow.
Nice camps along the river there is plenty of campsites
Peppermint Creek photos
Since the weather forecast was obviously way off , with temps around 100°+ I headed up to the west high country and wound up at a camp The Needles
The following AM I headed up to the lookout which isn't open until 9am, but there are certainly worse places to hang around and wait.
The views from here are amazing will worth a trip IMO
Needles LO photos
Later I headed over to Horse Meadow Cpgd off Cheery Hill Rd (SqNF 22S12) who should I see there but CougarMagic! Wow what a coincidence, well not really but we both arrived about the same time.
Holy Crap! $17 to camp here WTF? AHh... we headed back down the road to Poison Meadow Creek fire safe area much better $0 and water a plenty if you don't mind poison!
Well I ain't dead yet... As with all things plans change burnttoast never showed up (Swine Flu) and azurecheeetah showed up late after a 6hr drive from SD
The following day we explored Salmon Creek down to the falls, had I been paying attention to the map I'd not have seen the parts of the creek we did. Salmon creek trail (SqNF 33E36) makes a left across the creek a short was out of the TH near the camp and skirts Horse Meadow to a trailhead about 1½ - 2 miles on SqNF 23S08 ('SPUR 5" on the road sign)
There are many good backpacker camps down here easy access nice area
We got to the end of the trail and scrambled down to the pools and polished slick rock very nice spot , we continued down to the falls but you can't see'em from here, guess that's why I couldn't find any photos on the web!
Salmon Creek Photos
We stuck around Poison Meadow cpgd until about 6:30pm as Rincon is a hot hot place this time of year, more of our group was there and another showed up later making our number 6 for 7T-Cups sweet!
We hiked in via Chris Brennan's drop-in a short way up from Johnsondale bridge, even at 7:30am it was quite hot no GPS needed for this hike I've done it 3 other times. At the 4WD primitive camp near Dry Meadow Creek there was a group camped, we asked if they saw the cougar connected with the very fresh tracks we saw a short way from their camp? "Nope mountain lions" was the reply.
Our descent of 7T-Cups was great fun, I was expecting a bit more water since this is the earliest I've done this route but it wasn't to be. I didn't turn my head sideways in "The Spout" this time, and we used the anchor canyon left into the deep pool near the end of the route.
The 4WD group hiked in the upper canyon and where amazed to see us in the water... "Slick Rock Slim" was traversing and going up & down the canyon wall oblivious to the danger, it's a wonder he's lived as long as he has
I forgot about the second anchor below the deep pool that keeps you our of the hydraulic in the slot, someone has modified it so you just clip your rope into it to redirect your rappel and you don't need to setup another rope THANKS!
Crossing the river was a bit of a problem
I tried to wade across as I've done in the past... no way I was swept away 3 times
We setup a highline to send the packs across and used it to send 3 of the canyoneers across, the final one across had a pull line assist
I checked the flow in Kernville where the flow was 505cfs @ 1-2pm when we where crossing, I've been told the high end of the safe crossing level is around 850cfs I'd like to have some training on doing it before trying that.
Along with a PFD and paid up life insurance
Thanks to all who made this trip a great one!
Matt
