By the morning Meredith’s leg was feeling better and we set out into the valley, passing by the very serene Evolution Lake and watching fat marmots pop in and out of nearby jumbles of gray rocks. I had been warned that Evolution Creek posed a potentially dangerous crossing at the trail (hikers have been known to get swept away by the current, especially in high snow years) so we took an alternate route through a mud-filled meadow to cross at what turned out to be a relatively deep, but wide and shallow, section of the creek. The other side proved to be equally muddy.
A long, steep descent past gnarly old juniper trees followed, until we arrived at the valley floor and a pair of bridges across the South Fork of the San Joaquin River, which eventually flows all the way into San Francisco Bay. We camped next to the river, and as this would be our final night in Kings Canyon National Park I decided to build my one and only campfire on the trail to celebrate.
Russell on the Road 