The goal of this trip was to hike less and fish more.
Day 1. We made the long drive from the Bay Area to the Pine Creek Trailhead to leave our car and to meet our shuttle driver to take us to the Piute Pass Trailhead at North Lake. Everything went on schedule and I would recommend our shuttle driver, Robert, from the Sierra Shuttle Service to anyone.
The only problem was that the weather was pretty iffy. We had to put on our ponchos early in the hike, but it didn’t rain hard.
By the time we reached the North Fork Bishop Creek Falls below Piute Lake, we were able to remove our ponchos.
We reached our destination, Muriel Lake, just time to quickly set up our tents before the heavy rain, hail and lightening started, which lasted about one hour. We luckily picked good campsites that ensured we would not get flooded.
We were able to get out of the tents before dark and were treated to a very colorful sunset.
Day 2. We woke up to cloudy skies and the threat of more rain throughout the day. We decided to take the chance to do a day hike up to the Lost Lakes 1 and 2. We got lucky with no rain on the way there and back.
Lost Lake #2
After getting back to Muriel Lake, we packed up and headed off for Tomahawk Lake.
We had planned to hike back to Piute Pass on trail to head towards Tomahawk Lake but instead we took an off trail route north from Muriel Lake to the Piute Canyon Trail to save time. We intersected that trail just west of Summit Lake. Just past the Desolation Lake Trail we again headed off trail towards Tomahawk Lake. We made it to Tomahawk Lake by late afternoon and fished for a while before dinner. We were able to enjoy some fabulous fish tacos for dinner and another wonderful sunset!
Day 3. We woke to clearing skies and a great weather forecast from our Garmin for the rest of the week. We fished our way around the entire Tomahawk Lake before packing up and heading off for French Canyon.
We took another off trail route towards Carol Col that was to the west of Mesa Lake. We made this route to the col quite easily.
Here is a view along the way to the south of Packsaddle Lake and the Matthes Glaciers.
Here is the view from the col looking north towards Puppet Lake and other lakes in the basin.
Outflow of the Royce Lakes
The view down the west side of the col was a bit daunting but we remained calm and started our way down. Carol Col is also stated as Puppet Pass on some maps.
Halfway down.
We found the climbing down to be pretty fast by making our way down using our hands for support on the stable, large boulders, rather than using hiking poles. We took a route down slightly to the north-east towards a wall. Once reaching the wall, the rest of the way down was easy.
Looking back up at the col from the bottom.
Once down on stable ground, we dropped our packs at the east end of Puppet Lake and then hiked to the middle of Puppet Lake to fish. We didn’t get a bite or see any fish in about an hour so we gave up.
We hiked over a ridge to the east to easily reach Star Lake. Beautiful location and lake. We fished for a couple of hours before dinner under mostly clear skies but it was pretty windy.
Day 4. We woke up early and headed down a ridge to the north from Star Lake towards Moon Lake for more fishing.
L Lake
Moon Lake
We did find a good spawning area at the east end of Moon Lake and did see fish along the shore. We fished for over an hour until it was time to head to our next destination, Royce Lakes. We took the L Lake Trail from Moon Lake until we reached a point where we could see an off trail path up the slope to Royce Lakes. We headed up the slope slightly to the east until we reached the top of the ridge and at that point we headed northwest to a point between Royce Lakes 2 and 3.
View to the southeast towards French Lake, Steelhead Lake and Mt. Humphrey.
Royce Lake #2.
We fished at Lake 3 without success and didn’t see any fish.
We were disappointed to find that we needed to cross a boulder field along the shore of Lake 4 to reach our camping area at the east end of Lake 4. Lake 4 is the largest of the Royce Lakes. We found a massive, excellent camping area on crushed granite.
We fished at Lake 4 from the east end of the lake to the north end at the inlet and also fished Lake 5, all without success and never saw any fish.
I took this photo just as the moon rising at about 10 pm.
Day 5. We got on trail early and headed down Royce Pass and headed on a northerly route to intersect the Italy Pass Trail at about 11k feet. We took the Italy Pass trail from there into Granite Park where we fished at a large lake at 11,413 ft under Granite Park Pass and also fished at a shallow lake at 11,350 ft.
Granite park was really an amazing area and named correctly.
After fishing, we headed back down the Italy Pass trail to Honeymoon Lake, where we set up camp at the east side of the lake near the outlet. We rested for bit before fishing and then again enjoyed fish tacos for dinner. After 4 days of almost no people, we had to re-enter society by meeting quite a few friendly backpackers.
Day 6. Last Day. Woke up at 6 am to get on trail early to start the steep downhill hike out on the Pine Creek Trail. We were both very impressed with Pine Lake and found many fish along the east shore near the outlet.
After Pine Lake, the trail really descends steeply down to the trailhead. We only ran into 4 backpackers heading up the trail during our descent and they were all moving slowing which made us glad we were going down the trail.
We were treated to many fabulous views of the Pine Creek falls as we made our way down the trail.
We treated ourselves to showers from extra water we carried and then changed into clean clothes before heading to Mammoth for some calories. We enjoyed steak sandwiches at the Mammoth Brewing Company before making the long drive home. By chance, we sat next to a backpacker that makes Youtube videos that I had previously watched. Check out his videos. His name is Sheety33.
Here are the hiking stats that we tallied during our lunch.
We fished at 12 lakes and caught fish at all but 3. Here are some fish pics.
Reflections.
I really enjoyed this route for its short daily mileage and it access to so many fishing lakes. Piute Pass is a pretty easy hike up to access such great terrain and fishing. We definitely got lucky that the rain stopped for us after the first day. We only saw about 5 people between days 2 and 4, I assume due to the rain and being off trail most of the time. There was tons of water flowing everywhere due to the rains during the previous weeks. This was great because we were able to enjoy some famous waterfalls that should have been barely flowing during such a low snowfall year. Grizzly brought a new Platypus gravity feed water filter system that was very impressive. It filtered two liters of water in minutes. We continued to wake up at 6 am every morning to maximize our daylight. Lastly, I must comment that I feel lucky that planning a trip late in the summer was not cut short but a wildfire. I hope this trend continues!
Hope you enjoyed the report and pictures. Well, it’s time to put all of the gear away until next summer. Maybe I will wash some it this time before next summer!
