High Sierra Topix

I'll probably backpack the Trinity Alps in June. Anybody recommend a favorite guide book and map?

Considering Grizzly Creek/Lake or maybe New River/Mary Blaine Meadow.

Grizzly Lake is about a 20 mile hike with the last mile being cross-country.
I highly doubt it will be accessible in June, but by July it should be okay, and
would highly recommend it as an intro to the Trinity area.

I have the "Trinity Alps Companion", Moss, 1997. It is a very odd guidebook. Probably the worst I have seen as far as trying to figure out routes. It is organized by five geographical areas, then by lakes and trailheads alphabetically. The few maps are worthless. I had to spend many hours putting the information on a map to get any idea of where anything was. The information on the lakes is OK, but dated. For example fishing success in the 1950's. It is well written in an "aw shucks" type of way and entertaining. It seems to primarily be a fishing guide. I do not know of any other guides. So if you get this guide, be prepared for a lot of work on your part to figure anything out. It is good if you simply want to go into, fish a lake, and go out. He does say which trails are overused by horses, useful information if you want to avoid these.

I've got a guidebook by Linkhart and White which is nicely put together and some nice looking trips. Only been to the Trinity's once and cannot comment much beyond that...it was my first backpacking trip and not too long on top of that (long story short we bailed early as I found myself puking my guts up the first night out...the sad part was that I was hooked to backpacking from then on )

You might check out "The Trinity Alps - a hiking and backpacking guide" by Luther Linkhart, circa 1986 published by Wilderness Press.

It has about 29 trips in it, comes with a map in the back pocket indexed by trip number. There is some fishing info in there, but given everything fishing-wise is a little different today, I'm sure some of that is out of date.

Thanks for the input and moving the thread.

Is the forest service topo map the only one available?

toejam wrote:Thanks for the input and moving the thread.

Is the forest service topo map the only one available?

Hmm. I use Garmin Mapsource 24k West for the NPS and then their TOPO 2008 for all the other areas.. Then "search and fly" the area using google earth. Nothing wrong with the forest service maps.

I did the Ward Lk area in 2009 on a backpack/hunt trip.

I don't have a favorite guidebook, but highly recommend Grizzly Lake. 200 feet deep lake at 8000 ft with an ~200 ft waterfall at its outlet. Thompson Peak rises above the lake and is the highest point in the Alps. It's fairly easily climbed from the lake. You don't have to do the 20-mile route, there is a 6.5 mile route which begins at the China Springs trailhead. It is a challenging trek, with a lot of elevation gain and loss and a hard scramble up from Grizzly meadow to the lake. The scenery here rivals Yosemite with way less people. Good fishing, too.