Rae lakes or Ediza/1000 islands Lk mosquitos

[kpeter]

I believe the permits are available six months in advance. From Agnew you have three routes to Tuolumne--you can take the high trail, which gives wonderful views but bypasses Shadow lake, Gem Lake, and a possible side trip to Ediza. There is the River trail which has the same disadvantages (unless you take the cutoff to the outlet of Gem--not a manicured trail) and lacks the view. The most common route is to go up the Shadow lake trail and camp in the vicinity of Ediza, then take the JMT to Garnet and Thousand Island. I love both the JMT and the High trails, but I'd probably do the JMT to see Shadow, Ediza, and Garnet on the first trip. But if you are flexible there are more permits available than just the high trail.

The middle of June would probably not be better and could be worse for mosquitoes. Basically, mosquitoes will appear about one week after snow melt, peak about two weeks after snow melt, and taper off to the point they become tolerable about 5-6 weeks later. So if you know the elevation and how much snow, you can develop a pretty good guess. From experience, I can say that the fourth week of July in a wet year still had mosquitoes at 1000 Island Lake, but they were just becoming tolerable. And I can tell you that the fourth week of July in a dry year there were no mosquitoes at 1000 Island Lake. So you get the picture.