High Sierra Topix

A great holiday weekend trip. I made the 7.5 hour drive down from Grants Pass Friday night after work and got in to the Mammoth "old" campground around 1am.

Day 1: 10 miles, 2750’

Saturday morning I learned that the Reds Meadow shuttle just started that weekend, so I parked at Mammoth Mountain and took the required shuttle down to Agnew Meadows. I had a permit for the high trail, which was basically snow free, and took that to Thousand Island Lake, which was not so snow free, but was melted out on the north side. I was a little wiped from staying up too late driving the night before—next time I'm going to split up the driving a little better. I think the altitude might have been contributing too... After a brief trip up towards Island Pass, I made camp, dinner, and watched the sunset from my tent.

Animal count: several marmots, chipmunks, an assortment of birds, two large white hares, and the sounds of several noisy grouse.


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The start of the High Trail


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The Minarets off in the distance


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Thousand Island Lake


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Sunset from the tent—too tired to go down to the lake and take a picture—this one's gonna have to do!



Day 2: 17 miles, 1750’

Sunday had me traveling down to Garnet Lake and beyond, only to find that each south side pass was entirely covered in snow, which made for some intermittent slow going. After going up several snow fields, I made my way down to Ediza lake, which was really beautiful, if not a little crowded on the holiday weekend because it is easily day-hikable. I was hoping to do a little more milage and get in to some of the lesser-visited lakes, but they would have required a lot of soft-snow travel, which wasn’t in the cards for the weekend.

After visiting Ediza, I made my way down to Shadow lake and decided to head down to the river trail to visit the PCT and see something different—the other option was the section of the JMT down to Reds Meadow that is a bit dusty and not very interesting. I made camp along the river and watched a large brown black bear eating his dinner until I decided to stake out my territory and let him know I was there and shouldn’t be bothered while sleeping. Fortunately, he didn’t decide to cross the river during the night.

Animal count: more birds, chipmunks, marmots, 2 pikas, a quail, several stellar jays, lots of butterflies, some chickarees, the sound of an owl using its sonar, and one large bear.


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Emerald Lake


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One of several snowfields hanging around on the south sides of things.


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Garnet Lake


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It's almost as if he thinks he's so important because he's got his own clothing line.


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Ediza Lake


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So I got a little carried away with tree pictures, but the trees around here are some of my favorites.

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Shadow Lake


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From the River Trail


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Who are you looking at?



Day 3: 7.5 miles, 1250’

This last day was a little more of the PCT, visiting the section that was completely wiped out by blowdown 2-3 years back. I made my way towards Reds Meadow, made a brief detour to Rainbow Falls, and then hung out at the Reds Meadow store until the bus came. I was back at the car by 1p and back home by 9:30—not bad timing, even if it’s a little longish for a drive.


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More of the river along the PCT—didn't see a soul in this section.


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Reds Meadow from above.


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You can see some of the uprooted trees that got wiped out from the windstorm.


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Rainbow falls


34.5 miles, 5750' gained, 2 nights

nice pics!

Those pics are great !!! Thanks for posting

That valley is one of my favorite place on earth. Thanks so much for sharing the pics...they are awesome!

Very nice photo's and TR, have one shot from the same vicinity you took your
#2 photo from. Rainbow Falls was flowing pretty nicely. Thanks for the Ediza intell.

great trip report and nice photos. Can't believe how much snow is still up there, but then again, I live in the desert and haven't seen rain in months haha. Thanks for posting

Great photos! I'm interested in heading into that area for a long weekend; so I appreciate your post.

Very nice trip report and photos. Good shot of the bear!