Upper Twin Lake-Kaiser Wilderness

[riverwalker]

Thanks for the TR Troutdog and the PM. You can ignore my PM as I think you answered all of my questions.

[riverwalker]

I survived 5 days in the backcountry with 10 Boy Scouts. I had two great leaders help me keep my sanity. Thanks again for all the beta beforehand. The boys had a great time once the realized it.
At the trail head. They already look tired:)

Lake levels were definitely high

First fish....ever!

Home for 5 days

The hike out. The boys flew on the way out with visions of In&Out in their heads.


I am glad we could give these boys this experience but boy am I glad it is over!

[riverwalker]

BTW-Fishing was okay. I was wishing I had my fly rod, but just brought a little packable spinner. All fish were C&R. There were plenty of fish in certain locations we just had a tough time coaxing them onto the end of our lines.

George Lake was still half frozen and there was a good amount of snow on the way up to the lake when we went. Some of our boys had never seen snow before, so there were a lot of firsts on this trip.

[rlown]

You Sir, are a brave man! You just started probably half on a lifetime of backpacking, and others on a lifetime of fishing.. Very nicely done.

Russ

[riverwalker]

Thanks Russ. I hope we gave some of them the bug. It is amazing how out of touch the kids are these days. These boys spent much of their time talking about video games and their experiences while playing them. I heard very few stories that dealt with reality. I should have overheard stories about egging houses, blowing stuff up, riding their bikes or skateboards off of insane heights or even girls. But it was just their virtual realities. I feel like an old man....The kids these days.

[DriveFly44]

Riverwalker, we were camped a bit above you and passed through on our way out - I was with my buddy and my pooch. I have to hand it to you with all those kids. Although, I can relate because I teach high school Kids are a bit different these days. Glad you were able to expose them to the outdoors.


ladd

[Troutdog 59]

Glad you and the Troop had a good time River and hats off to folks like you who put things like this together and take kids backpacking

[Mtnsummit]

Thought I would add my two cents about our trip as well. Hiked in July 14th, came out July 17th with my two boys. They are now 21 and 17. They both went on their first backpack trip at age 6 for the oldest and age 5 for the 17 year old. So yes, expose them early to this type of adventure for hopefully life long enjoyment of getting into the outdoors. They always ask each year "Dad when are we going on a backpack trip" - makes me a very proud and happy Dad. And nice to leave electronics at home.

Our original destination was to camp at George Lake. Stayed at Tamarack Lodge night before hike - great place to stay, not very expensive.There are patches of snow from the Potter Pass trailhead on the way to Potter Pass at first, otherwise the trail is clear of fallen trees. No problem on river/creek crossings. Look at trees for markers if you feel like you are gettting off trail. Once to Potter Pass, great views. No snow at Potter Pass. We then descended down to a meadow, which is covered in 6 inches of water in most parts. We should have veered left of the meadow to stay on track but ended up going to the right of the meadow. But we eventually did hook back onto the main trail leading to lower twin/upper twin lakes. Pretty easy hike compared to what we normally do on the East side of the Sierra's. I was amazed at the forrest, the green and overall health of the forrest. New seedlings and young tree's all over as well as huge old growth trees. We did not stay or fish as lower lake, just passed on the way up to Upper Twin. We got to Upper Twin and headed towards George, however, after passing Upper Twin, the snow started to be less patchy and more of a blanket. We lost the trail. comtinued on for a bit, and not being sure exactly where George was (trees make it more difficult to get a compass bearing), we decided to descend back a bit to Upper Twin. I am glad we did. We found a great campsite, and the lake if just gorgeous with a rock island in the middle. Bear canisters are not required, but we had them. Ranger did check out permit. He explained he had come up from the North - a lot of trees had fallen on the trail he came up. Fires are allowed. A nice bonus. To my amazement, there were no Mesquitos to deal with. Sure we each had a couple of bites, probably when fishing. But no bug juice or bug net needed. Temps were lows of probably 40 or so, highs probably mid 60's.

Fishing was fantastic at Upper Twin. Porbably hauled in 55+ fish. Catch and release except 4 for appetizer (all rainbows except one brook)Small.We all use fly rods. Used mainly sinking tip line, with various wet flies. But we did catch also on dry flies and floating line. Lake full but snow and ice free.

George Lake - we decided to do a day hike off trail scramble to George. A lot of fun and rock scrambling. Lake is free of ice. Some small amount of snow lingers on some of the shoreline. Fishing was lousy. Son caught only one rainbow, but it was much larger than those we caught at Upper Twin.

Saw hikers going up shute to peak I believe West of George - cornice of snow still protects that pass. But you can scramble around rock to bypass it. Those hikers were lucky that cornice did not break off on the snow shute they were going up - otherwise they would have been swept down that shute to some major problems.

Great trip overall. Glad we choose it - had orignial permits for Ten Lakes Basin in Yosemite, but thanks to this forum, decided to early in the season with snow for that trip.

John

[windknot]

Thanks for the reports, Mtnsummit and riverwalker. Especially glad to see you introducing kids to the wonderful world of backpacking and fishing.

[riverwalker]

Great trip report Mtnsummit. I had plans of a report like that but the boys wore me out:)

I was amazed at how few skeeters there were. I was expecting them to be thick. I usually hike with my ultralight but since I was base camping took my "heavy" tent. The first evening we had a few but after that almost nothing.