Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

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ltkenbo
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by ltkenbo »

Ok, cool, we'll do that. Anywhere you would recommend we could stay nearby the day/night before?

Also do you think it's worth it to mail in advance for the permit?
Shawn
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by Shawn »

It's hard to imagine the trail quota would be full upon arrival. If it were me, I'd:

1. Phone the ranger station in advance and talk to them about your needs/permit issues
2. Car camp near the trail head the night before
3. Read the logistical info here: http://www.summitpost.org/logistical-ce ... rvoir.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's a pic of Courtright - there are restrooms just behind where the pic was taken.
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Here's a wide shot of Courtright.
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Here's a pic of Cliff Lake from above -
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MountainMinstrel
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by MountainMinstrel »

We went to Cliff lake the 24th & 25th of June in 2007. We were the only people at Cliff and saw no one else on the trail so I would not be too concerned about getting a permit. There are a couple of camp spots just before you leave Courtright Reservoir. It is about 1.3 miles from the trailhead and has this view.
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Here is a view from the other side of Cliff Lake.
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Have a good time!
Just an old musician who loves the Mountains.
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ltkenbo
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by ltkenbo »

Sweet photos. So there are a regular car camping sites there? Marmot rock, Voyager rock, Trapper springs I guess from what I can see on the map? Oh and where is the permit office?
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Take-a-Hike
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by Take-a-Hike »

ranger station that I know of is in Prather...right on route 168..call them for open hours. Wife 'n I have good results spending night before/after in Clovis, Quality Inn, some such place. Then getting up early, but I always reserve permit, then call them day before and NFS rangers will leave permit in drop box for after hours pick up. Don't ever ask NPS folks to do that...wasting your breath. Prather is enroute to Shaver Lake where u have to turn off to whatever destination you choose. We went to Courtright last early July...lots of people there, but I believe there were sites available. I"ve never car camped/camped in those places so I can't be reliable about them. Courtright is about a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive from Clovis due to the road from Shaver in. NOt a bad road...just a long way in. We've never had luck or even tried to find a place to stay in Shaver...probably booked up year in advance and $$$ey. On our 2nd trip last year, we were heading to Vermillion Valley at Edison, getting gas about 200 yds from the ranger station, they called my cell phone wanted to know if we were coming to pick up the permit...someone wanted it...told them to keep their shirt on...we were right across the road getting gas. We picked it up and drove to Vermillion..another E ticket ride my wife hates, and spent the night in one of their trailors. But this trip was in peak season of mid August, you most likely won't have any where near those issues.
You'll go right by our house on the way from Temecula...we're exactly 2 hours up from Temecula and it's right at 3 1/2 hours from my house to Fresno (I don't mess around, have good bladder) where u turn off to get to 168. Get directions.
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ltkenbo
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by ltkenbo »

Ok so me and my dad went on our trip last Thursday (well we started it Friday morning) and got back today. It was very fun but there were a couple disappointments. We never actually made it to the dinkey lakes themselves. I will explain.

The first day we hiked from the cliff lake trail head to helms meadow and stayed in helms meadow.

The second day we hiked out of helms meadow and we were going to take the trail that goes towards bullfrog lake to get to the lakes regions we followed the map and reached the split where there were signs, one towards bullfrog and the other pointing to rock meadow and telling the distances of other lake. However, for the life of us we could not find the bullfrog lake trail. We saw the sign and the map, and started to follow it but it just disappeared. We searched for over an hour and a half and could not find it. There were so many fallen trees everywhere we figured that it had been mostly hidden or destroyed over the winter. We did though see a very interesting old abandoned log cabin which looked like it was from early 1900's late 1800's. By the time we finished searching we decided that we would take the trail north as originally planed around the north side of dog tooth the next day, so we stayed near that cabin that night.

The third day we started to take the trail north past the split but found again that after a little bit the trail just disappeared. I knew the general direction of where we wanted to go, but since we didn't have a GPS and this was the first time and the third day, we did not feel comfortable venturing into the unknown with just a map, compass and altimeter (I didn't feel like being stuck in the wilderness lol). So we decided to head back toward courtright. So we hiked back and stayed at a nice little spot right off of the north side of courtright and we stayed there the third and fourth day and hiked out today.

So, it was kind of frustrating but I figured it had to do with the fact that there were still not official reports from the rangers meaning they hadn't checked out the trails yet. So we decided that next year we will probably try this again a little later in the season when the trails will be good and with a GPS.

Let me know what you think and if any of you ever had similar problems. We still had fun but I wish we could have seen the lakes.

Oh and does anyone know anything about that old abandoned cabin? Who used it, what year, etc.?

I'll post some pictures when I can.
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by The Other Tom »

Thanks for the trip report. I've found that nothing goes exactly right when I hike, but you have to make the best of it. Sounds like you did exactly that and had a good time. Good for you !
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ltkenbo
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by ltkenbo »

Well the photos of our 5 day trip to dinkey lakes are here if anyone wants to look at them:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2 ... cd2e2d4c2d" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and here are a couple of highlights:

Courtright Reservoir along the trail:
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Me in part of helms meadow with a view of dogtooth:
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More helms meadow:
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Here's that cabin I was talking about near the split to bullfrog lake. Does anyone know anything about it? (Me and my dad pictured):
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Courtright boat launch area upon leaving the area:
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AlmostThere
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Re: Suggested Routes or Areas for me and my dad

Post by AlmostThere »

It sounds like you repeated a mistake I made looking for that trail. In our case, we were coming down from Bullfrog and merely continued to follow the creekbed as it intersected with the main trail.

The surefire way to get to Dinkey Lakes loop without that longer trip around to Courtright and up to Cliff is to go to the Willow Creek trailhead off the National Forest road signed for Dinkey Lakes TH, for which you need a high clearance vehicle if you are not very comfortable driving passenger car on a rocky, uneven dirt road. First Dinkey Lake is only 2-3 miles in from that trailhead. Not that you need that info now...

I've had to get into the habit of looking closer at maps. The Dinkey Wilderness map that is generally found is OLD. Upon closer inspection of my version that trail is marked in a different color because it was no longer maintained. We found blazes and signs of others - horseshoe nailed to a tree, an old can - but didn't come across the cabin.

Sounds like you had a good trip regardless. :) Good job. My group is going later in the year - hoping to get some of those blueberries that will be ripe in September.
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