High Sierra Trips - Mineral King

We headed up to the Mineral King area in Sequoia for a weekend of camping at the Cold Spring campground with the plan to climb a few peaks in the area. The weather ended up being cloudy and rainy so it wasn't the best for climbing, but we still got to one summit. The first day we headed up the Franklin pass trail past Franklin lakes and then climbed up the south face to the summit of Rainbow mountain(12,043')! Luckily we had a short break in the clouds giving us some excellent views right as we got to the summit, but it wasn't long before we were back in the fog. We headed back down in the fog and spent the night at the Cold Spring camp. The next day the weather was looking even worse, so we gave up on doing any more peaks. My hiking partner decided he was just gonna head home a day early, but I decided to hike up to White Chief valley and explore some caves he had told me about. And there were lots and lots of caves to explore!! Water even flows into the caves making underground streams and waterfalls that eventually all emerges from a large hole in the rock where it cascades down the cliffs! It was amazing. I spent all day exploring up there and I could've stayed longer. I headed back down the trail late in the day and spent one more night at the Cold Spring camp before heading home.

Mineral King Valley