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Backpacking
Mineral King with Katia
Sequoia National Park · Mineral King Valley
Type
Backpacking
Time out
3 days (shortened loop)
Party
With Katia
Contours, elevations and trails from OpenTopoMap. Scroll down for the zoomable map.
Mineral King is a remote glacial valley in the southern reaches of Sequoia National Park, reached by a long, narrow, switchbacking road. At about 7,800 feet it is ringed by granite peaks and alpine lakes, with meadows, marmots, and trailheads climbing to high passes.
Backpacked the shortened Mineral King loop over three days with Katia, before the kids. This and the Yosemite overnight were the only nights out where I carried my own pack — on the Lares trek in Peru the donkeys carried everything.
(Pre-digital era — no photos survive in the cloud archive. 2010 is right; the exact day isn't recorded.)