High Sierra Topix

Has anyone hiked out of Kibbie Lake to the lakes on the south side of the crest? this would mean going around Kibbie ( I assume on the southeast side) and then up the canyon to Little Bear or Spotted Fawn Lakes?

I am looking at that as a possibility at the end of May...and would love some local knowledge.

I did a loop a couple of years ago up Kibbie Ridge to Many Island, over to Spotted Fawn, down to Flora, and then out to Kibbie Lake and the trailhead. The best way to do what you're thinking of is probably to do the Kibbie to Flora route (intermittent faint trail, otherwise X-C, some brush); from Flora, travel is not too difficult up the Bartlett Creek valley (which is beautiful). I don't know about going straight up the inlet stream from Kibbie--I've heard that travel around Kibbie Lake is a lot more difficult than it looks on the map (brush, unexpected cliffs, that sort of thing).

Photos from my trip here.

I have descended to outlet using the creek from Bartlett Lakes and it is choked full of
brush at the lake so the easiest thing to do was get in the water and hugging
the shore getting out where there are large rocks protuding into the water.
This was quite fun and cools you down on a hot May day.
Otherwise the descent itself was not bad, the skeetrz were pretty bad(level 4).
Using the ridge is much easier and will save you time, but I never cared much for easy.
As TT mentioned Bartlett area is really pretty.

An added note is that Bartlett Creek and such don't have much water later in the year but can be pretty spectacular early. If you're into fishing some of the supposedly fishless country (ie Bartlett Creek lakelets and such) this is the time to do it, given that those fisheries are slated for fish removal.