help with kid friendly hike, no quotas, south of yosemite

[adam]

Hi, I was about to start a trip to emmigrant with my family and another family with my kids tomorrow (with great help from this site in planning- thank you!).

However, it looks like it's getting very smoky out there. Any ideas for a good hike further south? It looks like the smoke is blowing north from the wawona fire.

My desire would be to do something with lakes to swim in; not sure what kids could cover, but a couple days of 5ish miles (or less) would be ideal. There are 8 of us, so I'm assuming any quota areas are not going to work.

thanks for any help!

[balzaccom]

Dinkey Lakes. At least two of the trailheads have quotas of 12 or more. Lots of lakes to explore, short hikes, fishing.

All that you could want. Yeah, you'll have to plan ahead to get the permit, and you may have to avoid a Friday or Saturday start, but that's where I would focus.

Jennie Lakes Wilderness, just north of Sequoia, has self-register permits, but the lakes there are farther apart,..

Either one would work for you

[adam]

Thanks a ton!
It looks like we're headed to pt reyes instead, but this will be super helpful for the future. This is the third time I've planned an emmigrant trip, and the third time last-minute changes scuttled it; guess it's just cursed.

[balzaccom]

Don't give up. We had the same experience with the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, Every time we made plans, there was a reason we couldn't go--fires, illness, family issues. Finally made it last year.

[BESON]

Dinkey Lakes. At least two of the trailheads have quotas of 12 or more. Lots of lakes to explore, short hikes, fishing.

All that you could want. Yeah, you'll have to plan ahead to get the permit, and you may have to avoid a Friday or Saturday start, but that's where I would focus.

Jennie Lakes Wilderness, just north of Sequoia, has self-register permits, but the lakes there are farther apart,..

Either one would work for you

I can't really add much other than these are great suggestions. I recently took my daughter (4 years old) in both areas. Skeeters were bad along the trail out of courtright to cliff lake in the Dinkey Lakes area. But the lake itself was fine.

[wildhiker]

Also consider the Potter Pass trail into the Kaiser Wilderness, north of Huntington Lake in the Sierra National Forest. The trailhead is on the paved Kaiser Pass road at about 8300 feet elevation. Potter Pass is at 9000 feet, and then you drop down to about 8600 feet on the north side at the Twin Lakes. Only a few miles to the Twin Lakes. Lots of other small lakes to visit nearby and you can even get up to Kaiser Ridge with some easy cross-country for excellent views. A quick look at recreation.gov shows plenty of permit availability - up to 36 spots on some days!
-Phil