TR: Little Lakes Valley, Gem Lakes, Morgan Pass, Chickenfoot
Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 10:44 am
Years ago I dayhiked Little Lakes Valley with my two young children. A 10,200 foot trailhead with a paved road and a string of spectacularly beautiful lakes with an hour or two's hike makes it extremely popular and overcrowded. For years I avoided it for backpacking for that reason. This year, however, I needed a easy warm-up trip and I wanted one as high in elevation as I could get, in a effort to avoid the mosquitoes that were beginning to bloom lower down. I thought I might explore it more thoroughly than when I had kidlets in tow and find some off trail places to escape the expected onslaught. Secondly, I had just purchased a new camera to try out, and a photogenic and easy destination seemed like a good place to start. So I went knowing it would not be much of a challenge and knowing that it would likely be crowded.
Getting Started
I grabbed the last online reservation available for a Thursday. There were not many available for any point in the summer, but perhaps because it was midweek and June there was a singleton available. For any party of more than one, reservations would be needed much longer in advance. I set out very early Thursday morning, got to Mammoth before 10 to get the permit, and continued on to the Mosquito Flat trailhead. The road is being repaved and the bridges widened, and so on weekdays there is as much as a 1/2 wait in each direction. There was quite a bit of parking on the weekday. I came out on a weekend to see cars circling for spaces like sharks. Moral of the story: don't even think of starting a trip at Mosquito Flat on a weekend.
The hike in
The trail going up Little Lakes Valley and over Morgan Pass used to be a mining road, built in 1939 to replace mule trails coming up Pine Creek to service the Tungsten mines. In many places trail re-construction has altered it but in rocky, flat areas the width of the trail and the sizable cuts betray its origins, as does an old chassis by the side. Like many old roads, it has a few dips that someone laying out a trail for hikers would have avoided, but it is a very, very tame trail.
I passed by Mack Lake almost without seeing it, moved past the Mono Pass turnoff, glimpsed grassy Marsh Lake, and then came to Heart Lake, the first lake which seemed very obviously photogenic with an inlet stream flowing under a couple of foot bridges.
Box lake was next--this was as far as I got with my small children and I paused there to reminisce about our picnic. As I recall we walked around the lake before returning home. Long Lake has had its east shore blasted to accept the mining road, but it was still pretty in its own way. I climbed out of Long Lake thinking that I would set up camp at Chickenfoot. However, I did not realize that the main trail bypasses Chickenfoot and I was most of the way to Gem Lakes before I figured it out. Why not camp at Gem Lakes? It was starting to rain, and so I crossed the stepping stones on the main trail and found my way to the new Gem Lake turnoff (not marked on old maps). A few hundred yards and I found my way to established and very nice campsites to the left of the trail just before it crosses back on a second set of stepping stones.
Racing the rain, I set up camp and ducked inside to snooze and acclimate. I had come from sea level and was now at nearly 11,000 feet in half a day. The rain let up long enough for me to eat dinner, pump water, and poke around the lakes a bit.
Then back to the tent to read and sleep.