Thursday, June 12, - 2008:  We (Me, Christian, Nick and Luca) drove up from San Diego, leaving around 7:30 p.m. on the 12th.  There was no traffic and we decided to try Google Map's suggestion of highway 245 instead of 63.  I don't think it was much different time wise, maybe 20 minutes slower, but an hour and a half of 15-20 mph turns after midnight is a little much.  We pulled into the sheep canyon camp ground in Kings Canyon around 2:30 and were asleep under the stars as soon as we got food into the bear locker. 

Day 1 - Road's End to Woods Crk Camp - 11.1 Miles, 2550' Climbing

            Friday, June 13 - 2008:  We were up with the sun around 6:30 the next morning, lounging around and packing up until a little after 8.  Headed to the trailhead and picked up the permit, ate breakfast and got organized.  Dad and Anna drove up that morning from the bay area and arrived around 10, we got on the trail just after 10:30.  The trailhead is around 5,000' and was already pretty warm at this point, making for a fun climb into paradise valley.  Mist Falls was still misting in late spring flood.  Lunched in lower paradise valley at our camp from last fall's autumn trip (compare pictures...), a beautiful spot.  Onward up Paradise Valley, passing the middle and upper campgrounds.  Started a climb up out of paradise valley at the end of the day, much to everyone's dismay.  Climbed about 650' up to a nice spot on Wood's Creek.  Warm night, not very buggy.

Day 2 - Woods Crk Camp to Middle Rae Lake - 10.4 Miles, 3000' Climbing

             Saturday, June 14 - 2008:  Up around 6, not too chilly.  A relaxing start, brewing some coffee and cooking oatmeal before getting on the road.  Hiking around 8am, relatively short climb into Castle Domes Mdw, would have been the death of us the previous evening.  Several campers in Castle Domes Meadow, a small pretty meadow with some smaller aspen.  Larger aspen groves above meadow.  Brief break at the Wood's Creek suspension bridge, Christian tested out the engineering on the "one person at a time" bridge.  Onto the John Muir Trail, turning south up the Rae Lakes Drainage.  Pretty quick progress to 10,000' then feeling the altitude and needing the lunch break at Dollar lake around noon.  Feeling better after lunch we headed on towards Arrowhead lake (previous camp site on JMT 2 years back), passing the impressive east faces of Mt Cotter and Clarence King.  Easy hiking the remainder of the way to Rae Lakes, picked out a spot on the peninsula near the middle of middle Rae Lake.  A few other campers at the lakes, but very quiet.  2pm or so, very pleasant, took an afternoon dip and got camp set up.  Toured upper Rae Lake and relaxed in camp until dinner time.  Very nice sunset.  Despite the higher altitude, still a very warm night

Day 3 - Middle Rae Lake to Road's End Via Glen Pass  20.1 Miles, 1500' Climbing, 7000' Descending
            Up early this morning, still somewhat dark out at 5am.  Temp's cooled down in the early morning hours to 28 or 30, reluctant to leave my sleeping bag.  Bars for breakfast, packed up camp and ready to go around 6:10.  Anna and Dad headed back the way we came, avoiding the snow and higher altitude of Glen Pass (11,978').  The rest of us started the final climb up the pass, quickly getting into some more snow just above Rae Lakes.  Very icy at first since snow hadn't yet seen the sun.  Around 11,200' we were out in the sun and got a good view of the pass, seeing that only one snow crossing on steeper ground was required.  We climbed up the trail and easy rocks to avoid snow covered portions of the trail.  The final snow crossing was still quite icy and a little dangerous without ice axes/crampons in the early morning, but postholes from hikers crossing the pass late the previous afternoon provided pretty good footing.  Up on top of the pass around 8 or 8:30, great view.  After a short break, we started the long descent to Road's end.  Mostly snow free after Charlotte Lake.  Great views to the south descending to vidette meadows, Lower Vidette Meadow very lush.  Made good time to Junction Mdw, a very pretty location.  After a couple more miles, we stopped for lunch near the outlet for Charlotte Creek, on Bubb's Creek.  After this we cranked out the last 8 miles or so.  As we dropped elevation, it got progressively hotter and dustier, topping out near 90 when we finished up at Road's End at 2:20.  We packed up the car and had a refreshing dip in the King's River, waiting until about 3:30 for Anna and my Dad to return.  With a long drive ahead, we hit the road around 3:40 without seeing them.  Home around 11:20 p.m., quite a trip...