TR - Purple/Ram Lakes 7-18-14

[overheadx2]

We headed over duck pass early Friday AM.


We set up camp behind Duck lake at Pika Lake.

Pika is a great lake with pretty good fishing. We fished Duck lake most of the day for pretty good size and #s. Duck lake was pretty consistent between 10" and 13" with a few about 14". Pika's fish were much more plentiful, but much smaller.

We then planned on heading over to Ram lakes, but some of the group were having a tough time so we ended up at the far end of Purple lake. Going to the far end seemed to guarantee solitude since it was relatively difficult to get to due to the blow down a few years ago. Fishing was good there for a lot of 10 to 12"s with the occasional 14"(its nice when you have to cut off the head and tail in order to cook them).

The next AM, I headed up the use trail about 2 miles to Ram lakes just to look around and fish. I got an early start around 6:00, and was able to fish for a few hours for limited 10 to 12" fish.

A LARGE storm started setting up around 8:00.

With the weather looking bad, I hustled back to camp just in time to get packed up before we got hit with about an inch of hail.

Our initial goal was to stay at purple Lake another day and then head out on Monday, but since a few were having trouble, we decided to head back to Pika and then finish up on Monday. It rained and hailed through out our hike to Duck Pass and as we got to the pass the storm looked worse than ever. Since it appeared that all we were going to do was set up camp and hunker down, we decided to do the extra miles and get out early. We got back to the trail head around 5 for a 12 mile day including Ram Lakes. This was a very nice, relatively easy hike with some pretty good fishing. I hope every one had a great time at the meetup, Phil

[oldhikerQ]

Nice trip report, OH. Like the photos of Pika Lake.

[sandersans]

Nice trip report...very helpful for an upcoming trip for Labor Day. I waited too long to book this year so some of my first choice trips were already taken (Yosemite Tuolumne area, Thousand Island, Ediza, etc) but had Duck Pass on my list. Looks like a great area with plenty of day hiking to do from Pika where we plan to camp.

[overheadx2]

Pika was a great place, but it is a ways to get to Purple, Virginia and Ram Lakes. If you can get to Purple Lake, the options for day trips are better.

[SSSdave]

See this is a thread from last summer. One of my bros will get excited reading your fresh fishing info, thanks. Three of us have reserved 9-day backpack over Duck Pass during the July 4 period spending some time in those areas. Some more useful pics can be found on Google Images, on Google Earth Panoramio, and on a previous summer's journey by RoguePlutonic.

In our case will pick up our permit in the Mammoth VC night box then night hike out with headlamps about 10pm to beyond Skelton Lake by midnight and will be well above the trail where any bears will not take notice. Thus next morning dawn will have just an easy 700 feet or so to get over Duck Pass and down to some whitebarks along a seasonal streamlet a few hundred feet above the east shore of Duck Lake by 8am to enjoy a full day there. So though very popular destination with both backpackers and dayhikers, any visitors will pass way below us predictably by the lake edge. Plan to climb up the surrounding ridge areas for a couple of interesting photos. One looking down into this very large deep lake that ought to provide an intense a saturated blue by late morning. Then late afternoon a view from the ridge southwest towards the Ram Lakes Basin. Next day will hike from dawn to Purple and up to Glen Lake (near Ram) by late morning where we will stay till late morning the following day. Next will spend a couple days at Hortense Lake, a couple at Virginia Lake, and then one each more at Purple and Duck. So 2 layover days, a lot of Sierra lakes with relatively easy to moderate hikes between each. Thus few hours on trails and a lot of hours at camp zones per my semi-basecamping orientation. Areas I haven't visited in the past though have been all over Fish Creek areas closer to the Silver Divide.

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