Over Memorial Day weekend we went on a backpacking trip in
the Ansel Adams Wilderness in the Eastern Sierras. It was a solid 5 hour drive
which is a bit of a push, but Matt got off work early Friday afternoon so we
made it to a campground in Mammoth Lakes Friday evening. Saturday morning we had
a delicious breakfast, picked up our permits and bear canister (booo, heavy) and
hit the trail. The Ranger Station had no clue as to trail conditions (clear?
3ft of snow?). Our beloved Black Diamond backpacking tent was still getting
repaired from it’s (mis)adventures on Mt. Whitney, so we had the McMansion car
camping tent with us.
Saturday we hiked about 9.5 miles, mostly along the PCT/High
Trail up to Thousand Island Lake. We
started at 8300ft and ended at about 9900 ft, so not a ton of elevation gain
but definitely some very thin air. The hike was beautiful – views the entire way.
We got to Thousand Island Lake a bit ahead of most people so
landed a choice campsite just above the lake and set up camp around 3:30. We
spent the afternoon lounging, and eventually made dinner, watched the sunset,
and had our Backpackers Pantry (aka, freeze dried) Crème Brulee. It was bit
cloudy but nothing to complaint about.
We had been planning on doing a day hike from our camp on
Sunday and hiking our Monday, but because it was early season there was still
quite a bit of snow around so a lot of the trails were not accessible without
some serious winter gear that we didn’t have with us. Sunday dawned clear and
blue-skied and we enjoyed a 3 hour leisurely coffee, breakfast and camp packing
before heading out. We had decided to take a longer route out via the John Muir
trail (11 miles). We pretty quickly hit a lot of snow and then ran into some
folks who had turned back to go the other way out because they were post-holing
a lot. Matt was ready to throw in the towel, but I badgered him into a going a
little ways at least. It ended up being our best decision of the weekend. The
route out via Garnet Lake and Shadow Lake ended up being incredibly gorgeous,
with very few people on the trail.
We made it back to the car at a respectable 3:30 and found
ourselves some delicious burgers and beer. It was awesome to see that SoCal
(mid-Cal really?) has some pretty epic high-mountain backpacking, it soothes
our Seattle souls.
Since we ended up coming out early and we were relatively in
the area, we made the 30 minute drive north to Mono Lake after getting some
food in ourselves. We weren't really sure what to expect, and it certainly wasn’t
a long stop but it was definitely worth the drive. Some pretty fun unique
scenery.
