Strapping on packs on the second morning was always a bit of a shock. The bruised shoulders and hips from the climb to Seville made themselves known. As would be my custom, I gathered all food and redistributed it evenly among the group, much to the chagrin of the kids who had carried the Monday meals, as they thought that their job was done. It is hard to leave Seville Lake without at least one glance over the shoulder, but the trail out is slightly downhill for a few miles which, combined with some altitude acclimation, allowed for easy hiking through Lodgepole, Jeffrey, and Ponderosa pine with patches of red and white fir huddled in clumps along the path. In the summer, this is great bear country, but late in the year they seem to follow the tourists into the canyon. At Comanche Meadow the Quaking Aspen starts and with the short fall days the leaves would have turned yellow and orange. Hiking in Quaking Aspen gives one the feeling of the dance of all things. Walking is almost dizzying and when one stops the surroundings continue to move. Of all the flora of the Sierras, none is so delightful a companion as the aspen. In a few days, when the trail up Avalanche Pass is the most tiresome, it will be the Aspen which lift your spirits, as the breeze moves up the pass.
The trail down to Sugarloaf Meadow is a sandy one, as it is frequented by horse packers, so the walking is not always pleasant, but the hiking is not challenging, with the trail rising and falling parallel to a small stream. While the Sugarloaf trail must get lots of traffic in the summer, by early October we would have it much to ourselves. The rare exception was when we once ran into two European fellows, middle aged, tanned and fit, who, besides packs, wore nothing but g-strings. There is nothing like two Germans in jockstraps to make a young person forget their blistering feet and reflect on the wonders of nature.
Sugarloaf Meadow is a long swath of grassland at the foot of a giant rock whereof it got its name. The Sugarloaf is an imposing 1,000ft spire of granite that appears placed and forgotten by some wandering god. The west end of the meadow features a nice, shady campground that we called home for a night on the early trips. As we got to know the trail, we began to lunch at Sugarloaf and push on six more miles to Roaring River, the exertion paying off in yet another layover day. Another factor was that the packers liked the camp, so the best tent sites were often littered with horse turds. On occasion, some members of the group would not be able to resist sleeping down in the meadow, only to wake covered in frost in the morning.
Unfortunately, though the trail from Sugarloaf to Roaring River camp is probably less than seven miles, it is more up and down than the morning trail. It is on this trail that I recall seeing a small, honey-colored bear cub perched about as far up a towering dead tree as one could imagine. He just sat there hugging the tree, perhaps waiting for Mom to come back. As we had a similar thought, we did not stick around to take many pictures. It was also on this section of trail that a bald eagle, in what still is my closest ever experience of one, swooped down next to the trail to check us out and then, with the smallest discernible shift in his wings, with not even a wing beat, soared away from us and was out over Kings Canyon in a matter of seconds. Just writing about it I am still in awe.