I just returned from a 6-day solo backpack in Sequoia N.P. The wet details: Last Thursday I drove to the South Fork CG. On Friday, Day 1, I hiked 8.1 miles (NPS figure) or 9.0 miles (National Geographic figure) to the crossing of the S. Fork of the Kaweah and camped just across the River. This is a strenuous day - about 4k feet elevation gain with a full pack. Day 2 I said goodbye to 2 guys I had been playing leapfrog with the day before. They were the last people I saw until I came out today. That day I hiked a short distance to Hockett Meadow, a nice campsite with several options for hiking onward. Day 3 was a fairly strenuous day, 7 miles with the last 4 uphill to Lower Blossom Lake. It's a pretty lake, even prettier before the snow and graupel cut the visibility. It had started right before I reached the lake and I got my tent up fast. During a break in the precip I made a hot dinner and then back into the tent as the weather kicked up again. When I got up in the middle of the night (to do what old men do when they get up in the middle of the night) the sky was clear and beautifully starry. Day 4 broke clear and sunny but I couldn't pick up the trail back down. (I have to get better about preparing and using my GPS.) After casting around for a while I saw, on my GPS, that I was in the angle of 2 trails and if I just went downhill I had to meet one or the other. I did, and came out at Wet Meadows which is a very wet meadow indeed. I kept finding and losing the trail coming up out of Wet Meadow until I came across a flats with 4 nice campsites. I checked into one and got my tent up just as the graupel started again. Day 5 again broke clear and sunny and I quickly found the sign where the National Forest trail entered the National Park. That really improved my mood. The NF trails were lousy but the NP trail was a joy to follow. By late morning of Day 5 it was clouding up again so although I had food for 7 days I decided to make it 6. I hiked a pretty short distance to S. Fork Meadows and then a trail that isn't on the USGS 7.5 map but is on the National Geographic. It diagonals southwest to the Tuohy Creek trail with a really sloppy wet foot crossing of the S. Fork. I turned north on the Tuohy Creek trail until it met the S. Fork river, about 1/4 mile south of where I camped the first night. That night was the worst as far as weather. There was an electrical storm somewhere in the area. I was in my tent and when I would see a flash of lightening I would count the seconds before the bang. The interval stayed about 8 seconds which I considered a safe distance. Day 6, today, I bushwhacked north the 1/4 mile instead of crossing the Kaweah and then crossing back again, picked up my first day trail, and was out by around 2:30.
The question: if you are in your tent, the one with the nice aluminum struts, it's 34 degrees out, and there's an electrical storm that is coming closer, do you stay in your tent or get out and freeze? I'm not asking what the book says, but what do you actually do - choose fire or ice?
