It started in mid June when I went with my 16 year old son on a backpacking to Philmont, the Boy Scout Ranch in New Mexico. It was fabulous.
I would definitely recommend to any parents out there to go to Philmont. It was an amazing, well run experience for scouts and adults.
Then, in late July, we did an annual boys and dads backpacking trip to the Sierra. This was our 6th year. This year we did a 4 night trip to Pioneer Basin. The fishing was outstanding. Here is our crew.
It was super windy the last night so we were all bundled up.
So, on to the annual long Sierra journey that I have been taking with my good friend, Rick. This was our 10th annual trip.
I think we have morphed into the following set of priorities when establishing a Sierra Nevada backpacking itinerary. First, good fishing. Second, safe off trail hiking. Third, no super long milage days. Fourth, have a layover day. And last, great scenery. Our route this year tried to hit the mark on all these.
During the week before we started our trek, we learned about the pending cold weather system that could bring the first snowfall onto the Sierra Nevada Mountains for the past 20 years. Good thing we were attentive of the pending weather because we headed the warning and prepared the gear we packed to be able to deal with the abnormal cold temperatures. This would be the first time ever for me to bring thermal underwear and mittens into the Sierra during the summer.
Here was the forecast of the Yosemite area.
And here was the forecast for Mt. Hopkins which is the closest area forecast we could find. IMG 4511
Day 1
We left the Bay Area at 6 am to meet up with our shuttle driver, Robert from Sierra Shuttle Service, at the McGee Creek Trailhead parking lot by noon. He shuttled us to the Mono Pass Trailhead up Rock Creek Road.
We started hiking around 1 pm and make it to a good camp spot after crossing over the Mono Pass for the night along the Mono Creek Trail by 7 pm near the Fourth Recess turnoff.
The always excellent view heading to Mono Pass of the Little Lakes Valley.
We reheated our half cooked, frozen NY steaks for dinner along with mashed potatoes. Incredible dinner on trail. We were able to eat the tender steak without utensils!
Day 2
We woke up early to start the difficult hike up into the Second Recess. The crossing of Mono Creek to head up into the Second Recess was ok but looks like it would be very difficult during heavy flow. The first two miles on the trail up to the Second Recess were easy. Then we made our first tactical error of the trip. We did not know that a faint use trail existed up the steep grade after leaving the maintained trail. This caused us to spend about 45 minutes hiking straight up through a combination of aspens, bushes and boulders. After getting out the aspen grove the faint use trail appeared. Oh well. If you are hiking in this area, look for the use trail to the north side of the aspen grove.
The Mills Creek outlet reminded me of the Dusy Basin outflow as it cascades down to LeConte Canyon.
After that we followed the on and off use trail all the way up Lower Mills Creek Lake. Getty close to Lower Mills Creek Lake.
We got in pretty late and quickly set up camp, had dinner and crawled into bed to keep warm. It was quite cold.
Day 3
We woke up early to fish but it didn’t last long. My fingers were frozen within minutes due to the frigid temperature. It soon started to snow. It was just flurries but we didn’t want to get wet so back into the tents we went. We stayed in the tents from about 8 am to 10 am to wait out the snow. Here is a view from my tent.
View of Mt. Abbott and Mt. Gabb with a dusting of snow.
After the weather improved and after a late breakfast and coffee we officially started our layover day to fish the lakes nearby.
The fishing started slow with catching just small golden trout but finished up a bang! Rick and I both caught a lot of large, beautiful golden trout.
We cleaned 4 of the medium sized fish and had great fish tacos.
That night was the coldest of the trip. Must have been easily below 30 F. So glad to have brought the thermal underwear, mittens, and 15 F sleeping bag!
Woke up early to ensure we had enough time to hike all of the way down the Second Recess and then up the Laurel Creek trail to Grinnell Lake. How cold was it that morning? It was so cold that ice was forming in our water bottles during breakfast!
We made quick time of getting back down the Second Recess to the Mono Creek trail and yes, this time we hiked around the aspen grove.
The hike up the first mile of the Laurel Creek trail was straight up. About 800 vertical feet in one mile. After the first mile the trail mellowed out. Ran into this beautiful scenery!
Approaching Laurel Lake.
Laurel Lake and the surrounding area was very nice.
The hike without any trail from Laurel Lake up about 500 ft to Grinnell Lake was fairly easy.
Grinnell is a huge lake.
We camped near the middle of the lake, a little too close to the lake but the established campsites were not plentiful. Fishing here was just ok. Mostly small sized brook trout.
Again, the night was pretty cold but at least it was getting warmer.
Day 5
We woke up early again and started out on our trek over Bighorn and Shout-of-Relief Passes.
We found this huge bolder just as we were leaving Grinnell Lake. It appeared to have many gold flakes in it.
If there are any geologists out there that can comment about this bolder, please respond. I can give you the exact coordinates, if you want to get some gold!
View to back down towards Laurel Lake and to the recesses an on the way to Bighorn Pass.
We sat for while looking up at Bighorn Pass to size it up and to pick a route. It turned out to be a pretty easy climb up to the top.
We next had to descend down to Rosy Finch Lake to make out way towards Bighorn Lake and to then on to Shout-of-Relief Pass. View of Rosy Finch from above.
We climbed up to a midway point up Shout-of-Relief Pass to detour over to an overlook of Bighorn Lake.
We wanted to climb down to the lake and fish for a while but decided we better continue on instead to make sure we had time to get to Izzak Walton Lake by end of the day. This was a good decision.
From the Bighorn Lake overlook we had to go up to Shout-of-Relief Pass via a route slightly to the west of the correct route up to the pass, but it worked out ok. Here is a view to the north at the top of Shout-of-Relief Pass.
We made it down the north side of the pass, but I definitely would not want to try this pass with snow on it. It is steep and very rocky. Looking back up towards the pass.
A view north at the bottom of the pass.
From here we kept going off trail towards Izzak Walton Lake. We got to an area to the east of the lake, looking way down onto the lake. View looking down into the lake.
We knew we were in trouble. We tried to find a path down at the south end of the lake without success and then continued onto the north doing the same. We eventually gave up and came to the conclusion that we had needed to enter the lake by staying much farther east to the McGee Pass trail and down the trail to gain access to the canyon that leads to the lake. It became too late in the day to attempt that so we had to abort and settled on Tully Lake for the night. It was a fine back up lake. It was beautiful and fishing for 10-12 inch brook trout was great. The males all had large mouths. Images of trout and lake.
During the drive home, we researched HST postings about accessing Izzak Walton Lake and found others having the same problems as us. Turns out that if we had done our homework, we could have accessed the lake via the Seirra High Route path that gets down to the lake from the east or following the path past Tully Lake. Anyway, learned a valuable lesson about proper planning.
Day 6
We slept in a bit and fished in the morning before heading out to McGee Pass. Morning at Tully Lake with the 13000 foot Red Slate Mountain looming in the distance.
Heading up to McGee Pass.
Heading up the pass, Red Slate Mountain stares you in the face.
The views back to the Sierra were pretty amazing.
As we kept hiking the trail become more and more rocky.
We saw this large boulder near the top of the pass. It appeared to be half rock and half petrified wood.
The hike down the other side of the pass was tough on the feet. The trail is mainly covered with rock.
We made it down to Big McGee Lake by late afternoon.
We chilled out by fishing and resting a bit before dinner.
Day 7
We woke up at 545 am to start hiking early so we could get to Mammoth for some good food before driving home.
Images from Big McGee Lake.
Images from the hike out.
We searched for some BBQ in Mammoth but couldn’t find any so we settled for burgers. We HALF joked that next year we will arrange our backpacking itinerary so that it ends near the BBQ place in Big Pine to ensure we get brisket within minutes of hiking out of the mountains. Priorities!
Here are the trip stats.
The drive home to the bay area was easy with no traffic. We were pleased to learn that no new wildfires are started while we were out in the backcountry.
Other trip notes:
We only saw one person between days 2 and 5.
We only saw a few squirrels and mice, lot of birds, and of course quite a few fish.
Backpacking in the Sierra in the summer during a snowstorm was not on my bucket list, but I have added it and checked it off the list.
We have fine tuned the amount of food we bring to minimize our back weight.
Catching Golden Trout is still awesome!!! Such an incredible, beautiful fish.
I continue to recommend peanut butter and tortillas for on trail lunches.
Bring precooked bacon for breakfast. A few pieces each morning to supplement whatever you are eating if awesome. Flavor and calories!
Late August continues to be a great time of year for backpacking especially during normal winter snowfall years. There are no mosquitos, the creek crossings are easy, but the availability to water is still plentiful.
The first day started with hazy skies, but the winds and snow luckily cleared the skies for us.
It was great to not have any long single day death marches on this trip.
This area near the Mono Recesses is an amazing part of the Sierra that we had never been to before. It requires a return trip!
