Hilton lakes 6/28/19

Questions and reports related to Sierra Nevada current and forecast conditions, as well as general precautions and safety information. Trail conditions, fire/smoke reports, mosquito reports, weather and snow conditions, stream crossing information, and more.
Post Reply
User avatar
overheadx2
Topix Expert
Posts: 579
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:08 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: huntington beach

Hilton lakes 6/28/19

Post by overheadx2 »

Made the trip to the Hilton lakes this weekend. Seemed to have picked the right weekend as the snow had melted off enough to get up to 10300’ relatively easily while mosquitoes seemed to be just starting up. On the hike in, we were overtaken by some horse packers and found that they were headed to the lower lakes which made our decision to head up to third lake much easier. The mosquitoes at the lower lakes were probably a 1-2 while the the mosquitoes at third and fourth lakes were a 0-1 due to a nice breeze most of the time.
2nd Hilton lake
4758876C-86AC-4AC0-BD17-EC608C388808.jpeg
The trail was snow free to the lakes turn off and spotty but relatively easy to the third lake. There was still quite a bit of snow on the steep north and east facing slopes at both the 3rd and 4th lakes with the camping flats areas pretty much snow free.

3rd lake from the inlet and from the ridge by 5th lake and looking from our campsite down toward Davis lake at dusk.
7826630B-38B5-435A-AA0D-3B4A792D831D.jpeg
43CDFB98-9A3E-4841-B665-FFD53014CEEB.jpeg
FE9B6A87-376F-4F73-9AB7-06C3515C13F9.jpeg
Getting to fourth lake was tough simply because of a slightly precarious creek crossing and extremely boggy terrain at the base of the creek coming out of 5the lake.

Getting to 5th lake was pretty easy by staying with on the snow free ridge from 3rd to 5th lake. 5th lake was completely snow covered with som very cool looking ice burgs in the lake. From 5 th lake on it was completely snow covered but easily doable with micro spikes or crampons early in the day.

5th lake and ice burgs
5FA5E74B-4185-4EDA-950B-D0D586FAFEDF.jpeg
Fishing was pretty good overall at all lakes.
C136055F-E2EA-4FF4-97A1-23224354E3C9.jpeg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 191 guests