Golden Trout Lake
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 10:01 am
We needed to get up to high elevation fast. So we decided to hike to Golden Trout Lake. We wanted to spend a couple of nights at altitude to acclimate for an upcoming climb.
I don’t remember ever seeing a TR about this trail so we thought we would share what we learned during our hike.
This lake sits at about 11,300 feet and is an over 2000 foot elevation gain in about two miles from the TH. We thought we could reach the lake after the long drive from Vacaville.
We left from the TH after obtaining our permit in Bishop.
You can see her hair blowing in the increasingly strong wind.
Our first objective was to climb to the top of this waterfall. The wind began to blow pretty steadily.
The gust became very hard the higher we climbed. We ran into this patch of snow at about 10,500 feet. We traversed across the snow on the way up. We crossed the stream and took a little use path on the other side to miss this patch on the way down.
This trail was not very well maintained. Sometime after the building of the trail a rock slide covered about a 200 yard section of the trail.
If you are a person who enjoys hiking on a trail and may not enjoy class two boulder hopping with a heavy pack on your back you should probably chose a different destination. The hike over these boulders is not a very pleasant experience. If you do want to scramble over the rock slide, I would recommend staying close to the creek. The rocks that are lower on the slide are a little easier to climb over.
At this point the wind was blowing so hard we often had to stop walking just to keep our balance. The wind would catch our bodies and packs and use this as a sail in an attempt to knock us to the ground. The wind also helped chill us down a bit and sap our energy.
At about 10,900 feet we reached a pretty meadow. I was told we would be setting up camp and spending the night in this meadow.
The next morning we finished our climb to the lake.
That is Dragon Peak in the background. Sport took this picture from above.
Soon we got down to what was important. The CDFW calls this particular lake Golden Trout Lake #1. They claim it has both Brook Trout and Goldens.
We didn’t see or catch any Brook Trout, but there were many, many small little stunted Goldens.
I find it pretty amazing these things can survive in an environment where the surface is frozen and covered in several tens of feet of snow for most of the year.
Thank you for reading our post!
-Russ
I don’t remember ever seeing a TR about this trail so we thought we would share what we learned during our hike.
This lake sits at about 11,300 feet and is an over 2000 foot elevation gain in about two miles from the TH. We thought we could reach the lake after the long drive from Vacaville.
We left from the TH after obtaining our permit in Bishop.
You can see her hair blowing in the increasingly strong wind.
Our first objective was to climb to the top of this waterfall. The wind began to blow pretty steadily.
The gust became very hard the higher we climbed. We ran into this patch of snow at about 10,500 feet. We traversed across the snow on the way up. We crossed the stream and took a little use path on the other side to miss this patch on the way down.
This trail was not very well maintained. Sometime after the building of the trail a rock slide covered about a 200 yard section of the trail.
If you are a person who enjoys hiking on a trail and may not enjoy class two boulder hopping with a heavy pack on your back you should probably chose a different destination. The hike over these boulders is not a very pleasant experience. If you do want to scramble over the rock slide, I would recommend staying close to the creek. The rocks that are lower on the slide are a little easier to climb over.
At this point the wind was blowing so hard we often had to stop walking just to keep our balance. The wind would catch our bodies and packs and use this as a sail in an attempt to knock us to the ground. The wind also helped chill us down a bit and sap our energy.
At about 10,900 feet we reached a pretty meadow. I was told we would be setting up camp and spending the night in this meadow.
The next morning we finished our climb to the lake.
That is Dragon Peak in the background. Sport took this picture from above.
Soon we got down to what was important. The CDFW calls this particular lake Golden Trout Lake #1. They claim it has both Brook Trout and Goldens.
We didn’t see or catch any Brook Trout, but there were many, many small little stunted Goldens.
I find it pretty amazing these things can survive in an environment where the surface is frozen and covered in several tens of feet of snow for most of the year.
Thank you for reading our post!
-Russ
, but the lakes were all frozen so you had much better fishing than we did. Glad I could be of service 