High Sierra Topix

Headed up to Big McGee lake for some fishing and camping over the weekend.This was an easy hike that many on this site could do in a day. For us mere mortals looking for a relatively easy weekend hike of about 20 miles or so, this was a great one.
On the way up we were annoyed by skeeters at 9300' till about 9800' with occasional areas of swarms. Below and above those altitudes there were absolutely none. The trail started getting lost in the snow about 10400' and by the time we were at the lake at 10700' there was total coverage. Imagine our hopes of catching fish when we pulled up to this view of Big McGee lake. Total coverage except for 5 feet or so around the edges and the ice was over a foot thick.



We ended up back tracking along McGee creek for about a 1/2 mile to a beautiful spot.



The next day we headed over to Steelhead Lake at 10600' where we found very little snow, no skeeters, great campsites and unfortunately all the 6 inch freight trains you could want.



I am one of those guys that can't sleep dirty, so I was very happy with my gravity filter/ shower set up. I just switched out the filter for a shower head, boiled some water and had a great hot shower.



The flowers were starting up at the lower elevation and with all the standing water around, I would imagine the skeeters and the flowers will be taking off soon.

Thanks for the TR and pictures! Still a foot of ice on McGee Lake (10,472), but Steelhead just under 10,400 is totally thawed, interesting.

Beautiful pictures and I really like the shower set up.

Yes Mav, to be honest, we were planning on staying at Grassy Lake due to Ice, but we had nothing else to do so we decided to make the short climb to Steelhead just to see the place. Pleasantly shocked at the difference.

Gary, I am getting to spoiled to rinse off in ice cold lakes any more so I bought an MSR reactor with a 2.5 liter pot, Boils 2.5 liters in about 5 min, add that to 2 liters of lake water and you get a pretty warm shower for 2 people, then just refill the bag and change it back to the Sawyer gravity filter.

Thanks for taking time to create a TR and images. Too early to be up at those elevations mid June during a year like this. Our trip over the Silver Divide begins mid July and from your images expect there will still be plenty of snow left on north facing exposures that ought to provide nice aesthetics for Red and White and Red Slate. The optimal time at Big McGee will likely be end of July.

Whether mid-June was too early for Big McGee or not, depends on your trip goals. Spring condtions when lakes are still frozen offer their own rewards. You can usually find a dry spot to camp on. As long as you are prepared, snow is no reason not to go out. Personally, I prefer early season snow to mosquitoes. Looks like a good trip. I tried to fish Steelhead Lake last summer and it was, like you said, full of 6-inch fish and quite disappointing.

I'm with you daisy. To me July means great flowers but way to many mosquitoes for me, so I don't go in July. To be honest the trip was great. We could have camped at the lake, but decided to back track to an area along the creek we had seen earlier. Steelhead was perfect except for fish size but to be honest, 6-9" trout are more the rule than the exception so I wasn't to disappointed.

Nice looking trip! Thanks for the report. I'm intrigued by the shower, as I too have a hard time sleeping if I'm not clean. I've never really considered dragging a shower into the back country, but if it does double duty........... Anyhoo, glad you had fun and caught some fish.

Jason, literally you can take a shower along by adding 2 ounces. I have had a couple of folks message me, so Ill probably post pics on the gear section.

Thanks. I'm heading over Hopkins Pass on July 5.