Mineral King Camping Over Labor Day Weekend

Longing for a real camping experience in deep woods, I drove up to Sequoia National Park with Rae over the Labor Day weekend for some camping and hiking. We camped out at Mineral King Campground, one and half hours away from the Sequoia National Park entrance. Mineral King campground is at 4000 some feet elevation and it is far from the main park. One and half hour of driving on the winding mountain road, we got into pretty deep woods. In spite of the fully occupied camp site, everyone has their share of nature and space, which is quite of luxury compared with a local camp ground.
After we set up the tent, we walked down to the river for some refreshing splash. The snow melt water is still freezing. We changed the plan from full body splash to feet soaking.
We took a 12 mile hike to Franklin lake and back. Haven't hiked such a long distance for a while, it's a physical trial for me. The landscape changed from deep forests to highland mountain ridge as the climbing continued. It's a quite rewarding hike.
On the third day, we decided to take it easy for a smaller hike to Mosquito lake. We got back early to the camp site and hung out at the Silver city restaurant for some cold refreshing beer. Hot shower costs $5 at the store and I decided it doesn't make economic sense. I finally took a hot shower on the fourth evening when I got back home. I started to long for bug free civilian world and a clean and soft bed that evening. Human, adapted well to the wilderness prior to the evolution, have lost the compatibility with the nature. We have talked about the past and the future of creatures on the planet. We can't imagine. We like to try to imagine. The imagination gets lost in the course of growing up in a social world. We, human lost all- the survival skills, the nature of adaption and the imagination. We become pretty dump machine, occasionally in need of some fresh air. After a couple of nights of sleeping in a tent, we decide we need hot shower and internet and we pack and load our vehicle back to the concrete world. When we rushed to get on the road, the giant Alpine tree family was laughing at us. They have been there for thousands of years and they have seen all. Human, in their eyes are a bunch of  funny, busy and little things. They rush in and out and eventually gone.