camping in kings canyon

It was my dear husband's birthday this weekend... so we went camping!! It was great fun. And yes... I did bring decorations for our camp site including streamers and balloons! :) at the Ranger campfire I even told the whole group it was his birthday and all the campers who were gathered for the campfire sang happy birthday to him!!! quite fun!


This is us at the top of the hill we climbed up on the Don Cecil trail to Sheep Creek.

Another couple views from the Don Cecil trail ... did you know that Kings Canyon is deeper than the Grand Canyon!!

We stopped for lunch at the bridge crossing Sheep Creek. It was a lovely spot and not too many other hikers or bugs :)

This was our view for lunch -- the creek is actually the domestic water source for Cedar Grove -- so no swimming

Sheep Creek

This is the view from right outside our tent door! -- Beautiful

This is another view right outside our tent of the Kings River below - which is the bottom of the canyon.

This trail was at "Road's End" - after about a mile and a half we followed the Bubbs creek trail which took us through about two miles of meadow/light forest where another group of hikers who passed us said they saw a bear on the trail. We also saw tons of bear scat (poop) ON the trail ... needless to say I think that was the fastest two miles I have ever hiked. By the time we were taking this picture at the bridge I was a little more relaxed because there was a lot of people playing in the creek and no sign of bear scat. The last mile and a half was a lot more enjoyable!!

Bubbs Creek view.

So... anyone who knows my dear husband knows two things about him: he really likes the color green and he really likes ice cream. Well... my parents took care of the green this birthday with sending Greg the beautiful shirt he is wearing in this picture. I took care of the ice cream. And yes, it is possible to have ice cream on your second night of camping, with 90+ degree weather!!

Here is my dear husband with the special (green) ball I bought for him last Christmas to make ice cream. (Basically like the old coffee-can ice cream maker with one area for the cream & flavors and another area for the ice and rock salt.) The idea is you have to keep the ball moving for about 15-20 minutes and then you have ice cream. We have done this before and it works quite well.
Here is my dear husband during the last 10 minutes of moving the ball. He decided to put it in our (green) bucket full of water and push it around with a stick. Notice that he can't be bothered to put down the chips or beer in his other hand!! :) I love him!

Here's the ice cream result!! It makes about a pint of really great ice cream. I even put a candle in Greg's and sang happy birthday to him :) (He got his cake at home last week.)

Hope you enjoyed our pictures ... we had a great weekend hiking and camping at Kings Canyon National Park!!!