Category Archives: Hockett Trail
A Hockett Trail Guide: 8. Kern Canyon Fault
Trout Meadows: the old crossroads of the southern Sierra. Here’s where three trans-Sierra trails crossed: the Dennison, the Jordan, and our Hockett Trail. This is also where the eastern leg of the Hockett Trail begins, and the western leg ends. This is no arbitrary division: the Hockett Trail can very easily be seen as two [...]
A Hockett Trail Guide: 7. Little Kern Valley
Here, near the headwaters of the Little Kern, is where the Golden Trout leg of the Hockett Trail begins, and the native country of my favorite variety of golden trout. Ladies and gentlemen, present … fly rods! … or just sit by the stream and enjoy the show. The Little Kern descends quickly, then levels [...]
A Hockett Trail Guide: 6. The Western Divide
After crossing Hunter Creek, the incline increases as the Hockett Trail leaves the Hockett Plateau for the Western Divide. After ascending 850 feet, the trail reaches a ridgecrest that might deceive a traveler into thinking he’s reached the top, but he has another 300-foot climb ahead. All-in-all, it’s not a difficult ascent to the divide [...]
A Hockett Trail Guide: 5. Hockett Plateau
The Hockett Plateau is a glacier-carved plateau at an elevation of about 8500 feet, from 8200 feet along the South Fork Kaweah River to 9500 feet near Summit Lake. This sub-alpine tableland can be covered in snow—not to mention mosquitoes—into summer. It features a wealth of meadows, plus a number of glacial tarns well on [...]
A Hockett Trail Guide: 4. Ladybug vs. Garfield
Clough Cave is not the only cave in the South Fork area. There are four that I have heard of, one of which was discovered in 2006 and featured in National Geographic. Hundreds of such caves occur in marble outcrops which appear in the Sierra’s eroding meta-sedimentary shell. There are at least a half dozen [...]
A Hockett Trail Guide: 3. South Fork Drive
This leg starts just above the South Fork bridge where the Old Three Rivers Highway meets Sierra Drive. The original route was probably closer to the path of present-day Cherokee Oaks Drive, but that’s a dead end. What is today called the Old Three Rivers Highway ends at South Fork Drive, which our route follows [...]
A Hockett Trail Guide: 2. Kaweah River Valley
Today, much of this segment of the Hockett Trail is under the high water line of Lake Kaweah, but Sierra Drive (California State Route 198) follows the route faithfully along the south side of the lake to the South Fork, which is the stream that the Hockett Trail followed to the Kern-Kaweah Divide. One of [...]
A Hockett Trail Guide: 1. The Kaweah Delta
Accounts vary as to the starting point of the Hockett Trail. Most reports have it that the trail started at Visalia, and some specify the Union Army fort in that town. Other sources report that it began at Hale Tharp’s ranch on Horse Creek, now under the high water line of Lake Kaweah. The likely [...]
The Devil’s Tinderbox
From the first crossing of the South Fork Kaweah River above Three Rivers (elev. 962 ft) to tree line on Hockett Hill above Owens Lake (approx. elev 6700 ft), the Hockett Trail is, with few exceptions, a forested trail. Even the Coyote Pass alternate over the Great Western Divide is well-forested. The only places where [...]
The Fire Below
Looking back millions upon millions of years ago to the tectonic events that gave birth to the San Andreas fault and California, earth scientists have been striving to determine what forces might have caused the southern Sierra Nevada to lose its root about 3.5 million years ago. It’s a good bet that a range of [...]