Bearpaw High Sierra Camp
with side trips to Redwood Meadow Grove and Hamilton Lake
Home > Sierra Nevada > Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks > Giant Forest
The kitchen and dining cabin at Bearpaw Meadow. The frying pan serves as a dinner bell.
The camp
Bearpaw is a full-service camp 12 miles east of Giant Forest on the High Sierra Trail. The camp is dramatically situated at the edge of the high country, on a precipice overlooking the craggy granite peaks of the Great Western Divide. The camp is quite small, with 6 tent cabins that can accommodate up to 12 guests. A full-time staff of five provides fresh-cooked breakfasts and dinners, hot showers (rigged so you can’t leave the water on continuously), and a flush toilet. Despite these amenities the camp is very rustic. It’s definitely a camp and not an inn, and the tents in particular are very basic. But that’s the point: Bearpaw is a perfect way for day hikers to get an immersive Sierra wilderness experience that would normally require backpacking.
Guests at the camp can go for hikes in the grandeur of the High Sierra, trekking through alpine meadows, on trails cut into sheer vertical cliffs high above conifer-clad valleys, past glacial lakes, among immense granite cliffs and peaks. The best part of the day, though, is coming back to the remote encampment where the staff is hard at work preparing dinner and chopping wood for hot showers.
The camp has six tent cabins
The camp was established in 1934 and it seems like little about it has changed since then. Supplies are brought in by mule train twice a week. There’s no electricity; the tents are lit by oil lamps and the dining cabin by gas lamps. Food is stored in propane-powered refrigerators. Water comes from a nearby mountain stream and is filtered for drinking. The whole camp is disassembled every fall and stored in a stout log cabin.
Dinners are extraordinary. They’re prepared by a single cook each day, and the cook has the freedom to make whatever he or she wants, so the food has none of the institutional feel of most national park dining facilities. It’s very much like home cooking. It also helps that the food is prepared in small batches, since there are only 12 guests at most. The camp has five cooks and they rotate, so dinner each day is made in a noticably different style, though it’s always hearty and nutritious. Dinner is served buffet-style and there’s always plenty of food.
Breakfasts are likewise excellent and include hash browns, scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage and some kind of fresh-baked coffee cake or bread. Orange juice (frozen concentrate) and coffee are also provided. Eating breakfast in the little chalet while the sun rises over the mountains is definitely a highlight of the Bearpaw experience.
Boxed wine is available for purchase, and lemonade and homemade brownies are available throughout the day. For lunch, you can purchase a sandwich or a wrap made from leftover meat from dinner, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Mike serves a superb dinner of barbequed tri-tip, red potatoes, squash, salad, and onion bread. He also made peach pie with walnuts for dessert.
Breakfast is served at 7:30. Hot showers are available from 2:30 until 5:30, and dinner is served at 5:30. The shower and toilet facilities are surprisingly clean, much cleaner than at Lodgepole or Cedar Grove. However, there’s no maid service for the tents. Towels and washcloths are provided and there’s a jug of liquid soap in the showers. The beds are provided with comforters which are really quite warm.
The camp is open from early June to late September. Reservations for the year can be made starting on the first business day in January at 7 am; the entire summer is pretty much sold out by about 9 am. However, there are a lot of cancellations, and open dates are posted on the camp’s website every weekday.
The staff, who are mostly young backpacking enthusiasts, don’t really mingle with the guests, although they’re nice enough if you talk with them or ask what’s for dinner.
Although there are other High Sierra camps, none offer the unique mixture of amenities and rustic appeal found at Bearpaw. Yosemite has five High Sierra Camps which are much more basic than Bearpaw; they which each accommodate about 36 guests, and tent cabins are shared with other hikers dormitory-style. At the other extreme is the Sequoia High Sierra Camp in Sequoia National Forest, which accommodates about 72 guests and aims to be more like a luxurious inn; it’s only a half-mile hike from the parking lot, and at dinner dishes can be ordered off a menu.
The hike starts at the Crescent Meadow parking lot. A wilderness permit is required and can be obtained at the Lodgepole Visitor Center between 7 am and 3:30 pm. The permit is free for Bearpaw guests. With the permit you can drive to Crescent Meadow even on summer weekends, when the road is closed to other visitors.
The hike to Bearpaw is a surprisingly difficult 12-mile trek. Although a sign at the trailhead says the trail was built to minimize elevation changes, the trail still has quite a bit of climbing: 2,000 feet of elevation gain outbound and 1,300 foot returning. The altitude and extra weight don’t help.
The first segment of the trail, from Crescent Meadow to Wolverton Cutoff, is the most scenic. After a brief hike through the Giant Forest and up a wooded slope, the trail breaks out into the sunshine. There’s a fine view down-valley to Moro Rock and the arid-looking foothills, as well as across the valley to the spires of Castle Rock, and up-valley to the much lusher, conifer-clad River Valley terminating in the dramatic, craggy Great Western Divide, perfectly spread out in front of the trail. Bearpaw Camp is on the ridge that’s clearly visible just in front of the Great Western Divide.
The High Sierra Trail and Sugarbowl Dome, on the way to Bearpaw Camp
The trail proceeds through lush, open, light-filled forest with more views up-valley. After Wolverton Cutoff, the trail ascends through patches of dense forest interspersed with exposed stretches. It’s a pretty good pull up to the Mehrten Creek Trail intersection. After that are several hazardous sections where the trail is cut into a sheer vertical cliff with nothing to keep you from falling off. There are a few such sections before Mehrten Creek, too, but the scariest ones are between Mehrten Creek and Buck Creek.
Despite the cliffs, from the Wolverton Cutoff until the beginning of the final climb the scenery doesn’t change very much and the trail can get a little monotonous.
Parts of the trail are carved into granite cliffs
The trail descends to a creek crossing with a footbridge, then begins the final ascent to the ridgetop. This is the most challenging part of the hike. This part of the trail is densely wooded and there aren’t any views; much of the ascent is in a hidden ravine that doesn’t show up on topographic maps.
Day hikes from Bearpaw High Sierra Camp
More photos
- Here are a few more photos of the Bearpaw camp and day hikes.
Related websites
- The official website has reservation information, photos, and a description of the camp.
- Alice Q. Foodie has an extensive 2-part blog entry on and photos of Bearpaw Camp.
- This Los Angeles Times article is from 1997, but other than the price the camp hasn’t changed at all since then.
- Ray’s Adventures has a blog entry on Bearpaw Camp.
- For several more points of view, see TripAdvisor’s Bearpaw page.
- There’s also a helpful review on Yelp.
© 2012 David Baselt