Lake Isabella / Keyesville

Sequoia National Park to Lake Isabella, CA | Camping at Tule Campground on Lake Success | Hiking Unal Trail in Sequoia National Forest | Camping and Hiking around Keyesville, CA | December 2025

Following our days spent in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, we were in need of a full reset before we could return to dispersed camping in the wilderness. We started by refilling water at the national park campground, then stopped by the Foothills visitor center for stamps. We then finished the drive out of the mountains and back into the valley, which was STILL plagued by fog.

We really wanted to take showers, so we found a campground that had some and was only $20/night. We drove down to Lake Success (an Army Corps of Engineers reservoir) and found a spot in Tule Campground right on the lake. While it wasn’t the cleanest spot, it was quiet and had what we needed, so we had a nice evening here. This ended up being the last campground we paid for on this vacation, which is pretty good considering we still had 4 weeks left on the road!

The next morning, we drove to Porterville to complete the last of our errands: groceries, gas, oil change, and the post office. With that, we were ready to spend a long weekend off grid near Lake Isabella. We drove a long winding road back up into the mountains, for the last time while in California. Driving through these foothills reminded us a little of Ireland: the lush green and treeless rolling hills, and the gray, foggy skies that hung over us. We eventually rose above the clouds and were met with blue skies and drier, forested land. When we reached the highest point of CA-155, we stopped at a picnic area in the national forest. After enjoying lunch together at a picnic table, Curtis went for a hike while I hung out at the van. While I had enjoyed hiking with him a lot more while in the national parks, I needed some more rest time, and this felt like the right time to stay behind and let him pursue his goals.

Curtis: It had been almost two weeks since I had hiked Black Lassic in the Northern Coastal range and while we had been in some fantastic National Parks, we had not had the opportunity to climb any prominent peaks. But we were going back to the desert and planning on traveling a lot slower than we had been, so I looked for any and all opportunities to climb.

At the top of the Greenhorn Pass there were several prominent peaks, but two of them had been severely affected by a wildfire several years ago, and the roads and trails were still considered closed. But just to the South of the pass there was an established trail that got close to a prominent peak: Alta Sierra.

The trail was called the Unal Trail which translates to Bear and officially only makes a loop to a lookout on a shorter sub-peak. But it was a good trail, and even had a Letterbox. Once at the lookout, I followed a use trail further South to a campsite. Online maps and reviews suggested that there were some old forest roads leading up to the high point. And sure enough, I could just make out an old road bed. Fortunately for me, the fires had cleared out the understory so it was easy enough to pick my way through the trees. The summit itself was tree covered and without any views.

I retraced my route back to the lookout and then followed the loop back to Jess. On the way out I ran into a Forest Service crew, whom I gave my report from the couple of blowdowns. Supposedly, there are the remains of a local native summer village who would come up into the Sierras to avoid the summer heat.

Jess: Once he returned, we finished the drive down to Lake Isabella, and took CA-155 South to Keyesville Recreation Area. We followed the dirt road back a mile until we found a good dispersed spot for the weekend: flat and open, allowing for plenty of sun for our solar panels. We settled in and got right to work on some maintenance tasks we had put off for a while. We also took some time to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. Throughout our entire 10 week roadtrip, our days spent here were some of the only ones that we’d classify as being warm and sunny enough to enjoy sitting outside without long sleeves. I’m not complaining — we knew where we would have to go to find warmer weather, we were just stubborn and wanted to stick to the plans we had made to travel to areas we haven’t spent much time in.

We ended up spending three nights in this spot, thoroughly enjoying some much needed downtime after so much driving and being around so many people over the last week. We enjoyed walking up and down the dirt road, and Curtis went for a longer hike on his own one day, looking for Letterboxes and climbing a short but non-prominent peak.

I think we could have stayed here even longer, or moved slowly around Lake Isabella enjoying the different dispersed camping areas, but unfortunately the weather was about to change: after nearly a month of clouds filling the valley, they were finally about to be pushed out…by a large cold front and heavy pressure system promising lots of rain and flooding on the coast, and tons of snow in the mountains, including in this area where we were currently experiencing the warmest days we’d had in a while. Fortunately that was still days away so we had some time to plan our next move, but we knew our time in these mountains was limited and it was time to head towards the desert at lower elevation, which would hopefully be safer and a little warmer.