On May 27-29, 1978 myself, Kevin Twohey, Debbie …., Scott Morton, Gordon Lee, Lisa Sternberg, Stan Haye, Robbie Haye, Daniel …., Shawn Peek, Rody Troeter and David Troeter backpacked to the Little Kern River on a 22 mile round trip in the Golden Trout Wilderness.
We left Lone Pine about 7:30 p.m. Friday night and drove to Kernville, arriving around 9:45 and met the group from San Diego, then leaving about 10:30 caravanned to the Peppermint Campground on the Great Western Divide highway south of Quaking Aspen - making camp about 12:30.
Saturday morning we drove to Quaking Aspen and hit the trail about 9 a.m. We followed the road hiking on firm snow much of the time, then left the road and found the old trail and followed it over 8,000 feet and back down to the road in the Fish Creek Drainage. We continued on the road to the normal trailhead 6 miles from Quaking Aspen, then hiked the Lewis Camp Trail 1.5 miles to Jerkey Meadow where we made camp about 4:30 p.m. The snow was tiring to walk on but all made good time.
Sunday we day hiked down 3 miles to the Little Kern River. Scott did 17 miles altogether going to Hockett Peak via Willow Meadow. Myself, Stan, Robbie, Gordon, and Lisa returned to camp by hiking up the old trail along Fish Creek to meet the trail between Grey and Jerkey Meadow and on to Jerkey Meadow. The others returned via the main trail to Jerkey Meadow. It was a very pleasant day. Rody and Shawn tried fishing but the river was really too high.
Monday we hiked down the Jerkey Meadow trail to the normal roadhead at Lloyd Meadows, then down the road about a mile+ to the Freeman Creek Trail , then up that trail through the beautiful Freeman Sequoia Grove to the cars at Quaking Aspen. We left camp at 9 a.m. and arrived at the cars from 2:30 to 3:00. We headed home arriving about 7 p.m. Nice hike despite the snow.
Little Kern River loop 1978
