2012/05 Western USA trip - Kings Canyon |
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Friday June 1st
We set off early in search of the laundry and the showers. Some of the showers were marked as out of order and, as I soon found out, so were all of them on 
that side of the building, and my wash was very invigorating. After the laundry, we set off to see the far end of the canyon.
Roaring River Falls lived up to its name. It wasn’t as spectacular as those in Yosemite but we didn’t have the crowds either. We walked through the Zumwald Meadows, not much in the way of flowers but some beautiful views of the canyon walls over the river. Butterflies too. We’d been trying to get pictures of these swallowtails all day and then we came across about a dozen perched in a small patch of mud.
The road dead-ends just past there so any further exploration has to be on foot. I talked to a couple of hikers and they said the trail was steep and busy with rattlesnakes, so I didn’t suggest any more walking. Instead, we drove back along the road we’d come in from. The scenery is similar to Yosemite’s, with great expanses of granite cliffs, and some beautiful 
flowers. We stopped at pretty Grizzly Falls and then a few of the overlooks we’d skipped on the way in.
We had another campfire that evening. John and I went to the ranger’s talk. We found that the origin of the name “Kings” was a Spaniard who found the river at Epiphany and named the river accordingly. We also found that the last overlook we’d reached is called Convict Flats because the whole road was built with convict labour. We hoped that those convicts had our safety in mind.
While we were gone, Sandie and Edna spotted a strange animal coming past the campsite. It was too dark for pictures, but from their descriptions I think it was a wolverine. (And later in the trip Edna saw a picture of a wolverine and said that was what she’d seen.) Wolverines are rare and rarely seen. The best description I’ve heard is that they are giant weasels with an attitude problem. They’ll even fight a bear over a kill. I’ve never seen one outside a zoo.