Backpacking in the Sierras

Tl;Dr: Wonderful friends and I made it to Roads End for a 3 day trip to Paradise Valley in King’s Canyon

My friends recommended I read the High Sierras a Love story by Kim Stanley Robsinson a few months ago. I did, it’s fantastic. And it really made me want to go and experience the High Sierras for myself. In September of 2025 we managed to meet there and backpack into Paradise Valley.

Here are more photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/i3AHLXXiSJaDvCmk6

The logistics of the trip were pretty straightforward for me At least: fly to Fresno, rent, drive to the roads and ranger station and camp. My friends managed to get day of permits which was really excellent as permits can be difficult to come by.

We started hiking around 10:00 a.m. with fairly light backpacks on a Thursday. We were able to get to mist falls and then onwards to the middle of Paradise Valley campground by the end of the first day. Second day was day hiking up the valley. And the third day was hiking back out the way we came. There is a larger loop here a little bit less than 45 mi through some Lake country – the Ray Lake loop. Maybe that’s something I will do in the future but not enough time for us to do that on this trip. And the Sierras are huge in the sense that there are many hundreds of square miles of territory to explore – this trip was relatively low altitude, topping out around 7,000 ft but there seem to be many trails that start higher and go much higher up above 11,000 ft. So while the Ray lakes trip may be something for the future, there are plenty of other places to explore.

The geography of the area is pretty stunning – I was a little worried that it would look like the Cascades. There are common elements of course, but the Sierras seem to be made mostly of giant obelisks of granite. It’s amazing to see these immense granite structures breaking down into enormous boulders, fracturing into slabs and fist size stones, then grinding down into sand and combining with all the organic matter to make soil. There’s clearly ecosystem at work in which the plants create the soil for future generations from the fracturing Rock.

We saw a wide variety of plants – from run-of-the-mill ferns to Giant sequoias.

We spent part of another day around Fresno and managed to get to the underground citrus Grove. A completely weird and amazing place pictures will help more than words. Take a look in the gallery above.