High Sierra Topix

Just got back from an overnighter up the Lyell Fork with my wife. First time for her! We hiked out of the wildnerness permit lot and headed out to about 5.5 miles along the Lyell Fork and camped for the night. Weather was nice on Wednesday but got a little chilly at night with a cold front blowing through. Wednesday (18th) the wind pciked up and was pretty gusty on the way back. Started out with long pants and long sleeve shirts but soon warmed up to shorts. Too windy to light the stove for lunch!

Water in the Lyell Fork was running fine but no water at all in Rafferty Creek and some still in the Dana Fork. Not sure about Ireland Creek as we did not head that far up canyon. Mosquitos were pretty much non-existent. Did not DEET at all on the trip. Flies were bad on Tuesday, but the wind on Wednesday they were not a problem.

Fishing along the Lyell Fork was good with the largest brook about 12 inches. With the wind it made for some interesting fly casting!

That's a pretty area, and a good choice for a first backpacking trip.

So...... what did your wife think of backpacking? Did she go fishing as well? Hopefully she had a great time, and this will be the first of many.

Sounds like a great time....any pics? Hope the wife had a good time and a nice intro to backpacking, and as Rosie said the first of many. You are lucky if so...my wife hates it

Sounds like you all had a fun time. Is the wifey hooked?
Has she asked when is the next trip?

Her next trip is already planned. 7/30 - 8/1, same location, same idea. It will be with me and my wife. It will be my wife's first backpacking trip.

Hi Scott

20 Lakes Basin and Little Lakes Valley are great intro's to backpacking
with fantastic scenery and very little effort and I mean little!
20 LB is on the eastern side of Tioga Pass at Saddlebag Lake.
You can even take the ferry across the lake to make it even easier.
You can day hike to Conness Lakes and numerous other lakes in
the basin from a basecamp which youll be at in an hour at the most.
LLV is a further south on 395 out of Mosquito Flats.

Sounds like you had a good time Al.
Hope you and Scott, and the wives have fun at the end of the month.

1 more month before Angel and I blow through there.

Mike

Wifey had a great time. Not sure she is into steep climbs so will look for downhills and flats. As ScottV says (oldest brother) next trip is out to the same place for two nights. May try one more overnighter in between and would like a Yosemite Valley trip via Yosemite Creek but the creek looks pretty low. That would be a great overnighter though.

She has done a lot of day hikes with me and really enjoys them but first overnighter with a pack. She did not get a chance to fish as this was kind of a loast minute trip and with out of state licenses it gets pretty hard to fund and time.

May try the 20 Lakes Basin as well.

Mike you will have some pretty good sailing through that area at the end of August. Make sure you carry enough water since I don't think it will be anything close to what we had last year. I was very suprised to see Rafferty dry at the middle of July!

Allyn

20 Lakes Basin is spectacular, and as another poster pointed out, you can get to the good part wih very little effort.
Here are my pics from an overnighter in June of this year http://www.bernalhill.com/Saddlebag.htm

Glad your trip was a success and your wife enjoyed it. You certainly chose a good debut trip for your wife. I've seen too many outdoorspeople start their spouse or significant other off with something too tough and end up souring the other person on backpacking for life. Twenty one years ago I took my wife-to-be (married two years later) to Little Lakes Valley for her first trip. Seven years after that she was doing some of the most amazing "death march" backpacking trips with me. Since that first trip we've hiked to and fished 515 high country lakes together. On the next trip you might bring a second rig and see how your wife likes fishing. Not everyone is into fishing, but some simply take to it. In the early days my wife would always say the only reason she wanted to keep going up there and doing all that hiking was the fishing (when asked in more detail, it was very clear that fishing wasn't the only reason she liked getting out there--but it certainly helped).