This post is a little late since we hiked this in August 2024. We stayed in Groveland and headed out early to get to the Sunrise Lakes trailhead on Tioga Road. The hike is 12.4 miles out and back, with about 3100 feet of elevation gain, so it is fairly difficult, especially since it starts at an elevation of about 8000 ft.

To get to the summit of Clouds Rest you walk over a rocky ridge. I would consider it a little bit scary if you're afraid of heights, but it's not steep and the rocks are fairly flat and wide.

At the summit of Clouds Rest, Ryan proposed! It was a beautiful spot, even though I was probably very tired from the hike.

After having lunch at the top, we hiked back down, and then were surprised by a bunch of our friends (who Ryan had invited, of course).

We spent the rest of the day at/in Tenaya Lake, and then visited Olmstead Point before heading back to Groveland.

Overall a very nice weekend :)

On a Saturday morning I was browsing Reddit and saw that the Perseid meteor shower was at its peak right now so we very last minute planned to go into Henry Coe to watch it. Dark skies are somewhat hard to get to around the Bay Area, and we thought a short backpacking trip would be fun.

Details, at least as far as I remember

Overview

We camped at Mahoney Meadows, a 7.8 mile hike from the trailhead. I picked this area to be in a ridgetop area for better stargazing, and also because it's one of the closest dispersed camping spots from the entrance. The trail is flat for the first few miles through Manzanita Camp, then switchbacks down to China Hole (nice creek area), continue for a mile through the Narrows (narrow section where the trail follows Coyote Creek), then climbs back up onto the ridge. There is a restroom right when you get to the ridge. We camped a little past the restroom. There was no one else there and we didn't try too hard to find a nice spot because it was already getting dark.

Trip stats

Dates: Aug 12-13, 2024
Distance: 15.6 miles
Elevation: +/- 1500 feet
Permits required: Self registered
Bear cans required: No
Map: see official site

I don't remember what the permit situation was. I think we self-registered even though we started at the visitor center trailhead because we started so late.

We carried enough water for the whole trip; however, it is possible to filter water at China Hole, Lost Spring, or even Mahoney Pond, which is close to the camping area.

Photo log

Day 1: Hiking in

We had a late start at 4:30pm. By 6:30 we had made it to China Hole.

There was water at China Hole but the creek in the Narrows section was mostly dry. There were clumps of hardened white river plant matter everywhere.

It was already dark, so we quickly found a site as soon as we reached the top of the ridge.

For a while we could see the sky but more clouds were moving in. We did see some meteors (meteors not pictured). Then we went to sleep. A few times throughout the night I checked whether stars were visible, but it was too cloudy.

Day 2: Hiking out

We were up by 7:30am, at which point it was already very bright outside, and in our tent, which had been set up without the rain fly.

There were a lot of tiny frogs in the Narrows section. You could see them pop out as you walked past them, jumping into the water. We also saw a cute gopher snake.

In April 2023 we planned a 2-night trip to Death Valley. We had some other things to do in Socal so we just tacked this on to the beginning of the trip.

Originally we were going to camp there for a night, and stay in a hotel for the other night, but when we saw how hot the weather was going to be (highs around 100, lows in the 80s) decided to just do a hotel. We stayed at the Stovepipe Wells hotel. It was a nice and simple room. Every room had a window AC unit and they sounded like they were working very hard. It was a good thing we didn't camp and instead had a cool room to go to in the middle of the day (and at night). Stovepipe Wells Village also has a restaurant, swimming pool, general store, and gas station.

Stovepipe Wells is fairly central in the park and right next to Mesquite Dunes. Furnace Creek is a little closer to more of the park highlights. The Inn at Furnace Creek is a historic inn and seems to be fancier than the one at Stovepipe Wells.

Thoughts

Death Valley is large and desolate. Looking down from a high point, it looks like a massive flat of land surrounded by mountains.

In terms of the visiting experience, it's one of those parks that has a handful of really interesting landmarks but in between it's just flat and brown and dirt. The landscape is not really pretty, but it is interesting. It's not the type of place you want to stay in too long. It's a little unsettling. The little hotel villages look like outposts in an uninhabitable space.

The landmarks are also really far apart, so it's a lot of driving. It is very remote and large but once in the park most landmarks aren't too far away from Stovepipe Wells or Furnace Creek, both of which have gas stations. That being said, I've never been to the farther out areas of the park (such as Ubehebe Crater), or any of the dirt roads. It would be fun to come back some time with the right kind of car and drive some of the dirt roads. In particular, I want to visit Racetrack Playa and Eureka Dunes.

Journal

Day 1

Death Valley is about an 8 hour drive from the Bay Area. We reached Stovepipe Wells at maybe 5pm. It was still very hot. Apparently there had been a power outage at the hotel front desk, and we had to check in with a paper form and they had fans running everywhere. Our hotel room had a little window AC unit. We figured we would try to go somewhere for sunset. Dantes View ended up being too far, so we went to Zabriskie Point, about a 30 minute drive away.

Sunrise would technically be a better time because at sunset these rocks were all backlit. The hills and valleys on the other side looked quite nice, though.

Afterward there was still a bit of daylight remaining and it was cooler so we went to Harmony Borax Works.

Day 2

We planned to get up at 6am to see the sunset and then go back to sleep, but when we got up, the air was so cool that we figured we should take advantage of this time and head to Mesquite Dunes early.

It was a good thing we left so early because by the time we got out of Mesquite Dunes at 8am it was already getting hot.

Our goal was just to get to what looked like the tallest dune. The hike is listed as 2 miles, which felt accurate for the walk to the highest dune.

It was still early but it was getting hot and it was nice every time we got to walk in the shadow of the dunes.

The next stop was Badwater Basin. I thought this would be a good place to go during the day because I thought there wouldn't be much walking, but there was a little more walking than I expected.

The white salt was very bright and I wished I had brought my sunglasses.

There was a clear trodden path starting out from the lot where the salt had been stamped flat. The salt near the parking lot was all brown. We had to walk out a bit before the salt polygons were visible.

On the mountain there's a little sign that marks sea level; it's barely visible in the picture.

Next we went to Natural Bridge. There's a short dirt road drive to reach the Natural Bridge parking lot. It's a good (not too bumpy) dirt road. The parking lot has a nice view of the valley. Only one other group was there in the parking lot when we arrived just before 10am. The NPS page says "Hiking not advised after 10am in the summer." It was not even summer and it was barely 10am and it was already too hot.

The hike is about 1 mile round trip with 86 feet of elevation gain.

We turned around right after the bridge. I'm not sure how much more trail there is after that.

Next we went to Devils Golf Course, which barely required any walking. We were unmotivated to explore too much in here.

Then we went to Artists Palette, which is a short scenic drive. We stopped at a little turn off because we saw some other people there, but everything can be viewed from the car.

The photo is probably blurred because I accidentally had it on manual focus, but I like it because it makes it look hotter. After this (around 11:30) we went back to the hotel room.

At 6pm we finally got ourselves to leave the hotel room to go to Mosaic Canyon. It was less than a 10 minute drive from the hotel. The hike is a 4 mile round trip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.

Mosaic Canyon is a cool hike because much of it goes through a narrow canyon with smooth marble walls. In the narrower sections it's shaded, but at some point the canyon opens up and we were back in the sun.

We turned around at the boulder jam although according to the site you can climb through a hole on the left side and continue a bit farther through the canyon.

The sun set as we were walking out of the canyon.

We had dinner at the Stovepipe Wells restaurant and later went back to Mesquite Dunes to look at the stars.

We didn't actually hike into the dunes; we just watched from the parking lot. I didn't bring a tripod but the picture (me holding the camera steady at an angle while resting it on some surface) didn't come out too poorly. I think we saw a few meteors too.

Day 3

We didn't have much time today to do things but we wanted to visit a ghost town. It turns out many of the ghost towns in the area either involve a sketchy dirt road drive or a hike, which we didn't have time for, so we settled on Rhyolite.

On the way out we stopped by the visitor center and got a little sheepy stuffed animal from the gift shop.

Rhyolite contains a bottle house, some remains of buildings, and some art installations.

After seeing all the old ghost town buildings we looked around the art area. I didn't know what this was at the time, but apparently it is the Goldwell Open Air Museum.

These white ghost-like figures are very spooky. Especially spooky in the middle of the desert next to a defunct town.

I liked the bike ghost too.

After looking at the art for a little bit, we headed out. To get home we had to drive back through Death Valley.

Along the highway we saw a group of donkeys standing in the middle of the road. Invasive burros are a problem in the Death Valley area.

We planned a last minute trip to Henry Coe over Memorial Day weekend, which turns out to be very similar to what we did last year. The main goal was to go to Mississippi Lake. We decided to do a three day trip, with two 13-mile days and a short last day. We started at Coe Headquarters, and camped at Mississippi Lake and Skeels Meadow.

Trip Stats

Dates: May 25 - May 27, 2024
Distance: 30 miles
Elevation: +/-6800 ft
Weather: ~40-80F
Permits required: Self registered
Bear cans required: No
Map: https://caltopo.com/m/L5981

Tips

• There is a lot of grass at Henry Coe. Unless you stick to strictly hiking the roads, you will not be able to avoid grass. Wear clothes that aren't prone to getting grass stuck in them. I find that sock material is the worst for this, so try to avoid letting the grass touch your socks.
• Because of the tall grass, you probably also want to wear long pants to avoid ticks.
• Poles are helpful for the steep downhills.
• Trails that are called "roads" tend to be steeper and have more ups and downs than trails that are called "trails." "Roads" usually go straight over hills willy nilly with no regard to ease of hiking.
• I liked having a GPS map for navigation because the trails are often overgrown.
• There are a lot of water crossings in the narrows section, so consider bringing sandals.
• The lakes are good for fishing.  

Permits

Permits at Henry Coe are first come, first serve. From the main entrance, you can register for a permit at the visitor center. The designated campsites near the entrance have a fixed number of sites, while the areas further out are divided into zones. Permits cost $5 per person per night, and $8 per vehicle per night, so out permit cost $36. If you start at Hunting Hollow, permits are self-registered with no quotas.

Trail Log

Day 1: Coe Headquarters to Mississippi Lake (13.6 miles, +2177 ft,  -2674 ft)

We started not too early on Friday morning. The last 30 minutes of the drive is on a windy road, where we saw a family of wild pigs. We had to park at a secondary parking lot that was a half mile walk from the visitor center, maybe because the main lot was full. I didn't have any plan for the second night's campsite, so I asked the ranger for a suggestion. She suggested Skeels Meadow, with a tip about how a good water access point is right beyond the "No Trespassing" sign. We started hiking at around 10:30am.

For some reason I always notice a lot of wildflowers and wildlife while in Henry Coe.

The first 3-4 miles of the hike to Manzanita Camp is easy and flat, and relatively shaded. After that there's a not too steep downhill section down to China Hole. China Hole is a great place to take a break. It's a wide section of the creek with a bunch of large boulders to sit on. There is also a campsite somewhere nearby.

After this is the Narrows, where the trail runs right next to the Coyote Creek. For this hike, we had about one mile in the Narrows before we turned off onto the Willow Ridge Trail. Last time we were in Henry Coe, in mid-August, the creek was mostly creek. This time the creek was definitely there. It was probably knee-deep at the highest, and usually more ankle-depth. It would be challenging to keep your shoes dry by rock hopping. I wore Chacos on this trip, which was a mistake for blister reasons, but they were great for the river sections.

After the Narrows it was a steep 2-mile climb to the top of the ridge via the Willow Ridge Trail. We stopped somewhere in the middle of this climb to eat lunch. The Narrows probably would have been a better lunch stop. At the top of the ridge, the trail junctions with Willow Ridge Road. This portion looked flat on the elevation profile map, but I thought this was the most annoying up and down section. Maybe I was just tired from the climb before, but the ups and downs here are steep.

Finally the trail descends to Mississippi Lake. We decided to camp at the upper end of the lake, since it would make the next day's hike shorter. There was a large group fishing here, and they took up all the sites next to the bathroom and picnic table. We found a reasonable site just past the creek at the top of the lake. The creek was also where we filtered water. It didn't look easy to access the lake itself because of the reeds, and the creek looked muddy but there was a trodden path in the grass that led to a section with clear water.

There are tons of red-winged blackbirds around the lakes in Henry Coe. In this lake we also saw a few Ruddy Ducks. Their light blue beaks are very interesting. In the morning they were splashing around in the lake.

For dinner we had a box of instant mac and cheese with bagged chicken. I realized that we were lower on fuel than I thought. I also brought paper towels to clean out the pot so we wouldn't have to drink cold cheese water.

Day 2: Mississippi Lake to Skeels Meadow (12.7 miles, +2800 ft, -3870 ft)

We got up a little after 7am. I had my coffee, and we had Hawaiian rolls for breakfast. Today's hike would take us on a loop back toward the entrance via Blue Ridge Road and pass by Mt Sizer.

We started on Bear Spring Trail. The beginning section followed Mississippi Creek and was full of tall, wet grass. I got so many grass stickers in my socks in this section. Then we took the unnamed fork of the trail to the left, which climbed out of the creek area into another section of ups and downs over the hills. The greenery on these hills looked very different from the hills yesterday at Willow Ridge. The trail was sometimes hard to find in this section.

The trail junctions with Bear Mountain Road, which takes you back downhill to the creek. This area looked like a really nice camping spot. The trail followed the river for about a mile.

We originally meant to take Rock House Ridge Trail to Mt Sizer, but evidently missed the turn off to the trailhead and took Blue Ridge Road instead. I expected this to be a hard climb, but it actually wasn't so bad.

After this we turned onto Hobbs Road for an extremely steep descent to our campsite. I had blisters from wearing my Chacos for too long and I also regretfully did not bring poles, so I think this was the worst part of the entire hike.

Skeels' Meadow was a wooded area by Middle Fork Coyote Creek. There were a handful of designated camp sites each with a log for sitting. We set our stuff here and headed to the creek to get water. Like the ranger said, there was a No Trespassing (private property) sign, but the actual private property didn't begin until a bit after this. There was a trodden path to the left down to the creek. It was in fact a nice water spot, but unfortunately the water was too cold for me.

For dinner we had tortillas and summer sausage because I wanted to save fuel for coffee tomorrow morning.

Day 3: Skeels Meadow to Coe Headquarters (5 miles, +1900', -820)

For breakfast we had the Hawaiian rolls again, and I spent way too long picking pieces of grass out of my socks.

Hike started with a steep uphill on Hobbs Road, then a beautifully mild downhill on Frog Lake Trail to Frog Lake. There was someone fishing there. I was very happy to be back to the Visitor Center. Next time I'd like to go fishing and/or camp at some of the river sites, and/or hike past Mississippi Lake into Orestimba Wilderness.

Mission Peak is maybe one of most known hikes in the Bay Area. For some reason I never did this hike in the almost 4 years in the Bay Area until this point. Ryan was a fan of doing Mission Peak as a night hike, so that's what we did for my first time up Mission Peak.

There are four trailheads you could choose from. We started from the Ohlone College trailhead. Parking is in a college parking garage and you have to pay for parking. On later trips to Mission Peak I've started from the Stanford Avenue Staging Area trailhead. This parking is in a neighborhood, and most hikers park along one street. Starting from the Stanford Avenue Staging Area makes the hike a little bit shorter. I've never taken any of the other trailheads.

There are usually quite a few cows along the trail; sometimes they are very close to the trail. Probably don't bother them, although I pet one of the cows once.

Stats

Date: March 20, 2022
Trailhead: Ohlone College
Distance: 7.3 miles
Elevation gain: 2100 feet
Route type: Out and back

Trail log

We started in late afternoon, while most people were coming down the trail. There were some nice sunset views on the way up.

While the trail from Stanford Avenue Staging Area is steep the entire way up, the Ohlone College trail has some flatter sections in the beginning.

At some point more than halfway up there's a restroom. Three of the trails also meet up here in a little triangle.

The final section of the trail before the summit is steeper and rockier.

When we reached the top it was dark but the sky still had a reddish glow.

There is a pole-like structure marking the peak.

The night view is actually very nice!

That's the end of the pictures, since it was very dark.

I first heard about the Lost Coast Trail in college, and while I didn't manage to do it back then, it's always been high on my bucket list. The idea of backpacking on the beach seemed so unusual. This year Ryan and I got permits for a mid-July weekend.

The Lost Coast is a stretch of beach in Humboldt County in Northern California. It's notably remote because the terrain didn't allow for the highway to be built near the beach. The King Range runs parallel to the trail, right next to the beach.

There's also technically a southern section of the Lost Coast Trail which is much less hiked and doesn't require a permit. This section is not as beachy and mostly goes through the mountains.

Trip stats

Dates: July 7 - July 9, 2023
Distance: 25 miles
Elevation: +/- 1600 ft
Weather: ~50-80F, mostly clear
Permits required: Yes
Bear cans required: Yes

Logistics

About the trail

The hike is about 25 miles long. Usually it's hiked north to south, starting from Mattole, but we saw lots of groups hiking it the other direction. The reasoning for going north to south is apparently so the northwest wind will be at your back. Also, the paid shuttles support going this direction.

The hike is usually done in 2-4 days. We did it in 3 days, which felt fairly leisurely, but we had to rush a little to fit the hike during low tide. We camped at Spanish Creek and Buck Creek.

Summer is the most popular season for hiking the Lost Coast Trail. It can rain any time here, but it tends to be colder and rainier during the off season.

In terms of navigation, this hike is very straightforward, since it just follows the beach. However there are several sections where the trail leaves the beach, usually to bypass a section that's can't be crossed on the beach. Sometimes the turnoffs can be easy to miss, so if you encounter a particularly sketchy section it could be that there was an overland route. There were also some places where it looked like the original trail had eroded off the side of the hill, so you might have to deviate from the route on the map.

Ocean things

There are plenty of places to camp on the Lost Coast Trail. All of the popular campsites are by a creek, and the campsites are almost all under 2 miles apart. This also means you technically don't need to carry much water with you.

The terrain varies a bit. Sometimes it's soft sand, which was my least favorite. I tried to walk on the wet, packed sand as much as possible, but sometimes there's only soft sand. Some sections are gravel and small rocks (also annoying). Other sections are medium sized rocks that you have to hop and watch your feet on. Thankfully some of the trail goes into the bluffs, which is mostly dirt. Walking on sand kind of sucks, but in my opinion sucks way less than hiking uphill in high altitude. I mostly kept around a 2 mile per hour pace, and was fairly consistent, and probably a little faster than my pace on most backpacking trips.

It tends to be rainy and the rain can be unpredictable, so it's advised to bring rain gear. Since it was summer and there was no rain on the forecast for our trip, I only brought a rain jacket.

Leave no trace

The proper way to poop is to dig a hole (6-8 inches) on the beach below the high tide line.

I'm not sure if there are guidelines for dumping stuff directly in the ocean, but I washed food bowls and other clothes in it. At one site, the creek flowed straight into the ocean, so I washed things in there too, right where the stream meets the ocean.

Outside of the summer season you're normally allowed to build campfires out of driftwood. The permit will probably provide more exact info on when these days are, since it varies year by year. The fire season happened to end a week before our trip.

Tides

A fun part of hiking on the beach is that there are sections you can only pass through in low tide. There are three impassable zones on the hike – one really short one in the beginning, and two 4-mile ones. One guideline is to only go through the impassable zones when the tide is under 3 feet. This site has tide prediction charts.

This was the chart for our hike. On the actual site you can mouse over and see more detailed times. The red sections show the times where the tide is under three feet (aka safe to walk through the impassable zones). On day 1, the safe tide times were between 5:30am and 1pm. Day 2 went from 6:30am and 1:30pm, and day 3 went from 7:30am to 2pm. There was also a small window of low tide at night, but luckily we got to our site both days without having to hike that late.

Transportation

Most people hike this one way, which means you need to find some way to transport between trailheads, which are about a 2 hour drive apart. Currently Lost Coast Adventures provides shuttles from Shelter Cove to Mattole Beach. This is the least time consuming method, although it gives a little bit less flexibility in terms of starting time. Otherwise you could take two cars, and park one at either trailhead. Or you could coordinate with another group and swap cars after the hike. Even though we would have preferred to start earlier on the first day to get in the low tide window, it wasn't worth the extra time it would have taken to set up the cars ourselves.

The shuttle company had two starting time options — 7am and 12am. Because of our tide chart we had to leave at 7am, which meant we had to stay the night before in the area. Nadelos and Wailaki campgrounds are the closest camping, but both happened to be closed at the time. Tolkan campground is also fairly close, and there are a few hotels in Shelter Cove. We stayed in a hotel in Redway, about a 40 minute drive away. We were originally thinking of visiting Humboldt Redwoods State Park the day before, but ran out of time.

Permits

The Lost Coast Trail is popular so you will likely have to get permits in advance. Permits are released on October 1 for the upcoming calendar year and cost $10.

Surrounding area

The Lost Coast Trail is in the far north of California and since I rarely come up here, I wanted to explore some of the surrounding areas while we were there. Our original plan was to see Humboldt Redwoods State Park the day before (the Avenue of the Giants is allegedly a really good scenic drive), but we ended up not going. There are lots of nice beaches along Highway 1, but after doing the Lost Coast I felt like I had seen enough beaches. Mendocino is about 3 hours south of Shelter Cove. It's a very small and very cute little town with some cute shops, and we spent one night there after the hike. (I think another group in our shuttle van was also planning to go to Mendocino.)

It might be hard to find a gas station close to Shelter Cove so don't wait to get gas there. (Apparently there's a tiny one at the Shelter Cove General Store.) The closest normal gas station is in Redway/Garberville. I was also thinking of getting fast food for breakfast for the early morning drive to Black Sands Beach, but there are in fact no fast food restaurants in the Garberville area. It is very remote.

Trail log

Day 1: Mattole Beach to Spanish Flats (10.3 miles)

The morning of, we left Redway at about 5:45am and arrived at Black Sands Beach trailhead a bit before 7am. There were three other groups in our shuttle. The shuttle guide gave us a little 10-15 minute informational talk before we did the 2 hour long, windy drive up.

After we arrived at Mattole Trailhead there was a bit more information and then we were free to start the hike, at about 9:15am. Since the low tide window ended at 1pm, which gave us less than 4 hours to hike, and we had about 8.5 miles to go before the end of the impassable zone, it was going to be close. We figured we could stop at Cooskie Creek if we didn't make it in time.

The beginning of the trail is soft sand. I was hoping that the entire trail wouldn't be like this.

Since we were short on time, we didn't explore as much as we otherwise might have, but we still looked at some beach debris. Along the trail there are a few privately owned cabins. I'm not sure how often these ones are in use, but it would be an interesting place to live.

The Punta Gorda Lighthouse was constructed in 1912. You can go inside and climb to the top. Inside the lighthouse it's bright and airy and there are a couple of closets.

Shortly after the lighthouse you reach Sea Lion Gulch. We only saw one group of elephant seals lying on the beach. Sea Lion Gulch is the last spot before the impassable zone, and is also a potential campsite.

The impassable zone meant more beach hiking. I recall much of it being either packed sand or large chunky rocks. We accidentally missed one of the bluffs sections of the trail and had to instead scramble over a rock pile section to avoid the water.

We reached Cooskie Creek at 12:30pm. From here it was just under 2 miles to the end of the impassable zone. We estimated it would take us until 1:30 to get there, which would be 30 minutes past the 3 foot tide mark, but we went for it anyway.

For some reason these impassable zone sections felt like they went by quickly.

It was sort of calm here with the ocean closing in on the side, and the fog.

There's a small pinch point right before you reach Randall Creek, where a rock juts out, but it's very short and we had no problem running across between waves (the tide was at about 3.5 feet). Other than that, we were never too close to the water, although we could see the tide rising on us. There was another group at Randall Creek so we decided to go forward a bit before stopping for lunch.

After Randall Creek the beach opens up and the cliffs turn into a large flat grassy area. We found a piece of driftwood and had some instant mac and cheese for lunch. We were cooking for lunch since we had a lot of time to kill, given that we would get to camp so early.

The remaining 2 miles to Spanish Creek was dirt trail slightly above the beach, which was nice.

We reached Spanish Flats just after 3pm. There were some driftwood campsites on the beach. We took one with an existing fire ring (which we couldn't use) and some nice places to sit. In addition to the campsites on the flats, which are very exposed to the beach and sun, there are also some sites in the trees by the creek.

It was really hot when we arrived at camp so after setting up we sat by the creek in the shade for a while.

And then we just hung out at the beach for hours. It got a lot cooler as the sun went down. For some reason no one else was camped here, so we had the entire beach to ourselves.

For dinner we had an attempt at ramen pad thai (instant ramen, peanut butter, chopped peanuts, sugar, and canned bagged chicken).

Day 2: Spanish Flats to Buck Creek (8.8 miles)

We got up at 6 to get the hike in during the low tide window. After tearing down camp and making coffee it was almost 7 when we actually started hiking. I tried this Starbucks instant coffee that comes in individual tube packets and I didn't like it very much.

Everything looked very nice in the morning fog.

The beginning of the day was going quickly; so far all the hiking was easy and off the beach. Hiking on the beach is definitely unique, but I loved the view from the bluffs sections.

There was a section where the mountainside was covered in burned trees. We also passed by another house which was much larger than the previous cabins but still looked sparsely used. The trail here was wide and traversable by car.

We reached Big Creek at 9am. It looked like a nice place to camp.

After Big Creek the trail climbs higher into the hills.

We saw some deer here.

Finally we reached Big Flat at around , which was right before the start of the impassable zone. There were several groups here, and we also saw some rangers who checked our permits. Big Flat (as the name implies) was a large, flat area with potentially a lot of spots to camp on the beach. At Big Flat, the hiking went back to a soft dry sand.

Even though we were better on time than the first day, we still didn't have time to take a leisurely pace. Again for some reason felt like the impassable zone sections went by quickly.

We reached Buck Creek at 12:30. Buck Creek is in the middle of the impassable zone. All of the sites are a little bit up a hill, and each site is a well defined patch of dirt. At Spanish Creek only one part of the creek was easily accessible, but here, there was a long section of creek with lots of rocks to sit on. The beach area here was much smaller, though, and more rocky. Another group arrived at the site right around 1:30, at the end of the low tide window.

Like yesterday, it was hot. It felt at least 15 degrees cooler by the creek. It was even a bit chilly with the breeze. We saw a couple of garter snakes next to and inside the creek.  

We spent much of the afternoon going back and forth between the creek and the tent. At one point we set up the sun umbrella over the tent for extra shade.

Before the hike I was concerned it would be hard to find a place to poop, since the beach is so open, but if you're at a campsite past hiking time it should be fairly easy to just round the corner on one of the cliffs.

For dinner we had some instant mashed potatoes with some more bagged chicken.

At the end of the day everyone at the site was at the beach watching the sunset.

Day 3: Buck Creek to Black Sands Beach (5.2 miles)

Though the last day was low in miles, much of it was again soft sand walking. Since before reaching Buck Creek, you could see the end of the trail as the coastline was curved in a crescent shape.

We reached the trailhead at about 10am. After the hike we drove down to Fort Bragg and got lunch there, and the trip continued to Mendocino.

Thoughts on the trip

This is probably the most leisurely backpacking trip I've been on. The mileage wasn't so low, but there was no elevation gain and the tides force you to have a huge amount of downtime during the day. We got lucky that for us the time was all grouped at the end of the day rather than at the beginning or somewhere in the middle. I've never had this much downtime while backpacking; it's always been a little rushed to set up camp and get dinner done before dark. By the late afternoon, I'd basically forgotten about the hiking earlier in the day and it was just a normal beach day.

We had good weather on this trip, maybe a little on the warm side. Nighttime temperatures were mild, too, maybe in the 40s/50s at the lowest. Even filtering water was enjoyable. There were no bugs, and the water was clear and fast flowing and easy to reach.

I decided to plan a short backpacking trip in Henry Coe since we haven't done any trips in a while. Henry Coe State Park is only about an hour away, doesn't require reserving permits in advance, and has lots and lots of trails. The Sierras are very nice but I'm too lazy to make the drive up for two days of backpacking.

Trip stats

Dates: May 27 - May 28, 2023
Distance: 22.5 miles
Elevation: +/-5500 ft
Weather: ~45-80F — sunny day 1, foggy and windy day
Permits required: Self registered
Bear cans required: No
Map: https://caltopo.com/m/G143K

Trail description

Henry Coe is the second largest state park in California (after Anza Borrego). It is located in the Diablo Range and is less than an hour's drive from San Jose. It has a huge network of trails that are good for backpacking, but isn't too crowded, and doesn't require reserving permits in advance.

I was surprised by the amount of water here — normally these types of hills feel very dry, but there were springs and lakes scattered throughout the park. We probably didn't have more than a 5 mile stretch without passing a water source. All of the trails that we hiked were either wide dirt roads or very narrow trails through tall grass, with nothing in between. Apparently ticks are common, but we didn't see any.

Since it was Memorial Day weekend, the park was probably on the busier side. We passed many hikers on the trail, and the camp sites were fairly crowded.

While we were hiking I noticed a lot of wildflowers that I'd never seen before, so at some point I started trying to take a picture of every flower I saw, which will be evident later on in this post. I will also make an attempt at identifying them.

Trail log

Day 1: Hunting Hollow to Pacheco Falls (10.7 miles, +3300 ft, -2600 ft)

We had a late start in the morning and arrived at the Hunting Hollow parking lot at 12pm with a vague notion of the route we wanted to hike. There were lots of cars in the parking lot but there were a few spots left for us. We went to the information board to do the self registration and found a pamphlet with instructions for the Pacheco Falls loop hike, which we ended up using to get the route up to the falls. We also completely forgot about bringing cash for the permit, so we had to put in a 20 dollar bill for the $16 permit.

The hike starts off with the Steer Ridge trail, which appears to just go straight up the side of a hill. It's steep and narrow, and there's dry grass on both sides, causing hiking poles to continually get stuck in the grass. It was hot and extremely bright, which makes sense given that we started around noon.

About a mile in, the trail levels off to a milder climb until it reaches the top of the ridge.

The hiking became nice and flat after we got to the top. We passed Willson Peak, which doesn't feel like much of a peak, as it's a flat topped hill right beside the trail. However, it had two summit markers.

I liked the rocky outcrop covered in poppies. There were lots of other California poppies on this hike, too, but this was the most notable occurrence.

After Willson Peak we turned left onto Serpentine Trail, which went back downhill until Grizzly Gulch Trail, where we turned left. The next point of interest was Tule Pond. I guess you could filter water here. According to the pamphlet you could also camp here in the meadow by the pond.

There was a little creek crossing right after Tule Pond.

We stopped for a late lunch (3:30pm) at Wasno Pond. We found a log on the far side of the pond to sit on although there wasn't much shade. For lunch we had turkey and cheddar sandwiches. This is also a potential camping spot and watering spot.

After lunch, the trail continued along Wagon Road until the turn off to get to Pacheco Falls. Our original plan was to visit Pacheco Falls and then continue hiking along to Coit Lake, and camp there. But looking at the time, we realized we probably wouldn't make it to Coit Lake by sunset, and we wouldn't have any time at the falls.

We turned right onto Pacheco Falls Trail for the last downhill section. We passed by Wood Duck Pond, which is the recommended camping spot. There were already several tents here, so we decided to continue to the falls and see if there were any good sites on the way there. I was disappointed to see no wood ducks in Wood Duck Pond. There were however several red-winged blackbirds and coots.

We reached the falls at around 6pm. There weren't many flat spots for camping on the way down but we did see a potentially flat area with some oak trees. There were mosquitoes by the pool. We sat for a bit and filtered water. The water didn't look as appetizing as a mountain lake but it was ok. There were also some fish swimming around.

We ended up going to the site that we saw on the way down. There was a lot of tall grass there and we had to trample some of it to set up the tent which you're probably not supposed to do. There were still some mosquitoes here so we didn't really want to go outside. We cooked out the side of the tent, which you're also not really supposed to do. For dinner we had instant mac and cheese and a bagged salad.

Day 2: Pacheco Falls to Coit Lake to Kelly Lake to Hunting Hollow (13.5 miles, +2300 ft, -3000 ft)

We woke up at around 6:30 because of the sunrise, and the fact that we didn't use a rain fly on the tent. For breakfast I had my coffee and we had some granola. We left camp at 8am.

The climb out of the Pacheco Falls area wasn't too bad. We followed Coit Ridge Trail and took a small detour to Pacheco Camp, to see what it looked like. There was one group there and a few falling apart shed-like structures.

Coit Ridge Trail continues down to Coit Lake. Coit Lake was very large. We passed by one of the camp sites, which had a pergola with a picnic table underneath, and a bathroom not too far away. There was one group camped here. The weather was becoming increasingly cold and foggy.

Then from Coit Lake it was a short walk to Kelly Lake. There were tons of people camped here. Most people were camped on flat areas by the lake or on the tops of hills. It looked like a lot of tents were on slopey ground. There were also several people fishing. According to the Henry Coe website this lake contains bass, bluegill, green sunfish, and crappie. Coit Lake also has these fish, but for some reason was much less crowded.

After Kelly Lake we took Kelly Cabin Canyon Trail toward Wasno Pond. This trail was a narrow and grassy trail that followed a little creek through a canyon. At times you could not even see dirt on the trail as it was covered in trampled grass.

Apparently there are wild pigs in the park, and wild pig traps. This trap didn't appear to be in use, though, as the door was locked to the side.

The next stop was Willson Camp. Here there was some sort of wooden shelter with a picnic table underneath. A group had left their stuff (one tent, two bivies, backpacks, socks hanging on the wall). We had a noontime lunch here (sandwiches again).

Just past Willson Camp there was a spring.

The rest of the hike followed Lyman Willson Ridge Trail back to Hunting Hollow Road. The trail was flat along the top of the ridge for a while before going to a steep downhill. At one point we saw this unnamed pond (on my map it showed up as "C93"), which looked very nice.

The hills looked nice in the fog. We saw lots of Valley Oaks here. A lot of them had red fruit-like things on them, which I later learned were oak galls. Oak galls contain an oak gall wasp larva inside, and they grow because the wasp secretes some chemical that causes the plant to grow these things.

The last half mile of the hike is on Hunting Hollow Road, which is flat and has multiple stream crossings. The stream crossings were mild and I never had to get my shoes wet because of conveniently placed stepping stones, but the trail pamphlet said that to avoid stream crossings one could detour onto a hillier trail.

We reached the parking lot at 2:30pm, which felt like good time for a 13 mile day.

Backpacking in Yosemite always felt sort of off limits to me because you have to get permits far in advance, but in fact a bunch of permits are released 2 weeks before the start date at 7am. I was considering a loop around the Vogelsang and Lyell Canyon area, but that permit ran out fast and the Budd Creek XC permit was one of the only ones left, so we took that one. I think that the cross-country permit means you're required to start on the cross-country trail as opposed to taking a different trail, such as the nearby Cathedral Lakes trail. Since the Cathedral Lakes permits are much more popular, this cross-country permits are a more attainable way to see this part of Yosemite.

Trip stats

Distance: 15.5 miles
Time: 3 days
Type: loop
Dates: 18 June 2022 - 20 June 2022
Elevation change: +/-3700
Permits required: yes
Bear cans required: yes

Our route was similar to this one.

Trail description

The trail begins near the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center, which is where we parked. We picked up our permits from the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Center, which is a little farther up the road. We didn't have time during this trip to explore the area but the Tuolumne Meadows area is very nice. The total length of the hike was about 15 miles, but going off trail made it feel longer. There isn't too much elevation gain on this hike, but we added some on the second day by hiking to the base of Echo Peaks. The Matthes Crest traverse is apparently a popular spot for climbing. It's also possible to get to the top of the Echo Peaks with some scrambling. This post details the Matthes Crest traverse and some of the Echo Peaks. This post details traversing all ~10 of the Echo Peaks. It would be cool to do one of these traverses sometime but it also looks very scary.

Day 1: Hiked from trailhead to Matthes Lake. The first section of this is a marked trail to Budd Lake. After Budd Lake the trail ends and you go over a ridge then down into the Matthes Lake area, which is flat and meadowy. We camped here.

Day 2: Followed the creek around to Echo Lake. We then hiked up to the base of Echo Peaks for the view. If not going to Echo Peaks, you can just follow the creek until it meets the JMT right before Upper Cathedral Lake. We walked around Upper Cathedral Lake and then continued to Lower Cathedral Lake to camp.

Day 3: Short hike out to the trailhead.

Hiking log

Day 0: Drive to Yosemite

We drove up to Yosemite after work on Friday. We camped in the car in one of the dispersed camping spots along Evergreen Road just outside the West entrance of the park. There are a handful of turn-offs along the road. We saw some other groups camped here but we had no trouble finding a spot. We didn't have any sort of window covers for the car but there were no bugs, so it was fine with the windows cracked open. It's convenient to have this option for camping outside Yosemite with no planning required.

Day 1: Tuolumne Meadow to Matthes Lake

The next day we drove directly to the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Center to pick up our permits. I think the deadline for picking them up was 11am and we got there around then.  When we picked them up they asked if we were interested in a Cathedral Lakes permit, which means that maybe there were some available. There was a little store there so we bought some foods for breakfast. Then we drove back along Tioga Road, which was a dirt road at this part, to the Tuolumne Meadows Visitor Center to park.

The trail starts at about 8600ft follows Budd Creek to Budd Lake, which is at 9900ft. The trail here is very well marked. Budd Lake is one of those lakes that looks pristine and nested at the bottom of a rocky mountain ridge. It would have been a nice spot to hang out for a while but unfortunately it was cold and windy and I wanted to move on.

After Budd Lake the trail ends. Our plan was to go over the ridge to Matthes Lake. We were vaguely following the track from a random AllTrails recording, but the ridge looked a bit different because this side of it was covered in snow.

From the lake we could only really see up the first half of the ridge. The first half involved some scrambling but there was no snow yet and it wasn't too bad.

From here we could see the second half of the climb. This part was a little more sketchy. It was hard to tell which part would be the easiest to climb, as the top of the ridge appeared to be steep and covered in snow. At first we wanted to avoid areas with too much snow since it was steep and we didn't have any spikes for the snow and weren't sure how solid the snow would be around the boulders.

Luckily the snow was very sun cupped and very solid, which made it easier to walk up when it was steep. In some places you could tell that there was a big air gap between the snow and the boulders. We never fell through, though... In the end it wasn't too bad but at any point on the mountain we weren't really sure if it was possible to get to the top from the path we were on.

At one point we had to hop over this abyss. That felt a little treacherous. The top of the ridge had some really deep sun cups.

At the top of the ridge we could see Matthes Lake and the path looked smooth going from there, since this side was south-facing with no snow, and much less steep. Of course, still no trail on this side, but navigation was easy as we could literally see the lake and the terrain was unobstructed.

Finally we made it to the flat meadowy lake area. The whole ground was covered in green grass and marshy areas and little streams surrounding the lake.

It was still cold and windy here so we set up the tent quickly. We also somehow brought an empty fuel canister and I was very sad about not having cooked food. We probably ate cold ramen and snacks for dinner.

Day 2: Matthes Lake to Lower Cathedral Lake

Because the hike from Matthes Lake to the Cathedral Lakes would have been extremely short and would have taken no more than a few hours, we added a little bit of climbing to the second day by going to the base of Echo Peaks. We considered that we might try to climb one of the actual Peaks but once we were up there I didn't really feel up to it and it looked scary.

We sort of followed the creek to get to Echo Lake, but kept to the right before reaching the fork to avoid losing too much elevation. The Echo Lake area is very similar to Matthes Lake, with a large green meadow and creeks running through it. The creek runs straight down the valley with Echo Peaks and Cathedral Peak in the background. We took a break here to eat breakfast.

After Echo Lake, instead of following the Cathedral Fork stream to Cathedral Lakes, we followed a small fork of the stream up toward Echo Peaks. The terrain here was a mix of large granite rock and dirt patches. No snow here. It was a little steep but not nearly as bad as the ridge on the first day.

As we approached Echo Peaks we saw a narrow use trail, probably for people climbing Echo Peaks. From here the peaks looked maybe vaguely achievable, but still kind of far.

We ate peanut butter tortillas for lunch with some nice views of the surrouding area and mountains.

The descent was fairly straightforward and we then walked through a big meadow to meet up with the John Muir Trail. After so much off trail walking, with all the stepping over plants and scrambling up rocks and whatnot, it was a relief to be back on a real trail.

Short hike along the JMT to Upper Cathedral Lake, which is right next to the trail.

We set down our packs at the lake and walked around a bit. After a bit of exploring we decided to continue to Lower Cathedral Lake to camp. It would have been a nice lake to swim in, but it was still cold and windy.

We thought there might be people camping at Lower Cathedral Lake, but we didn't see anyone there. Lower Cathedral Lake is a little detour off the main trail. We set up our tent in a forested area. Still no hot food but I had sour patch kids.

Day 3: Lower Cathedral Lake to the trailhead

The next morning the lake was extremely still.

The hike out was short and easy. On the way we passed by several hikers who were also on their way out. I don't know where they were camped because we didn't see them at Cathedral Lakes. We saw a deer by the lake and then some more deer on Tioga Road when we drove out.

In the spring Ryan and I were thinking of hiking Half Dome while the cables were still down. Starting around March we were checking the reviews on AllTrails to see if people were able to do it. For a bit there were a bunch of reviews from people who attempted it but the cables were covered in snow. Sometime in April we saw a review from someone who successfully climbed Half Dome so we decided to go the week after.

Apparently Ryan is accustomed to driving to Yosemite the night before to start the hike at 4:30am instead of camping in the area. So we left at around midnight and got to Yosemite at 4ish. One annoying thing about doing a drive in the middle of the night is that there are no restrooms open anywhere along the way. I think we ended up finding a gas station that happened to have port-a-potties in the parking lot for some reason.

We started the hike at about 4:30. It was still dark. The section through Vernal Falls was misty, which was very cold. Other than that the Vernal and Nevada Falls section went by quickly, maybe because we couldn't see anything. It became light sometime when we were past Little Yosemite Valley.

The section from Little Yosemite Valley to the subdome is distance-wise about half of the hike and a steady uphill.

Once you reach the subdome the trail becomes steeper and rockier, and the trail is marked by cairns. I think we got lost a little bit going up because the trail was steeper than I wanted it to be but we found the correct path when going down. For some reason it's always easier to find the trail while going downhill.

We reached the bottom of the cables at around 9am. One group was coming down the cables before we started up and another group was right behind us. To go up the cables you need a climbing harness and two prusik loops with carabiners to connect them to your climbing harness. More details about going up the cables at the bottom of this page.

I think the hardest part going up was the fact that the cables are heavy and you're tied to them with a short loop so you have to walk sort of bent over and holding up the cables. It is steep enough that I would not have liked walking up without the prusik thing and I have no idea what it's like walking up normally when the cables are up.

According to the timestamps on my phone the next photo I took from the top was at 10:30 but 1 hour 30 minutes sounds like a long time. We did take a while to rest at the bottom of Half Dome and put on the climbing harnesses and whatnot, though, so maybe.

We spent a bunch of time at the top. There are these two ledges that look cool to take pictures on.

For lunch we brought one of those Safeway bread loaves and a small bottle of olive oil packaged in an old to-go Sake bottle. We also brought some sort of cake dessert thing from Safeway.

I went down the dome by facing up the mountain and sliding the prusiks as I walked down. You can also walk down facing forward.

We took the Mist Trail on the way down and this time we could actually see the waterfalls as opposed to on the way up.

Logistics of going up the cables

The main advantage of hiking Half Dome off season is that it's much less crowded and you don't need a permit. Recently it's become very difficult to get a permit. The Half Dome season goes from end of May to mid-October, usually. During the season the cables are held up with poles to make handrails and there are periodic wooden plank steps. Otherwise the cables are just lying flat on the rocks. There are a few months where it's possible to do Half Dome outside of the season because it becomes difficult/impossible with snow.

If you have a proper system for going up the cables then the cable part seems very safe, possibly safer than when the cables are up because you're tied in. Things you would need are

• a climbing harness
• two prusik loops (something like this or make one by tying utility cord into a loop)
• two carabiners
• gloves (because the cables can be poky)

At any given point you have one prusik loop on the cable. The second prusik loop is for the places where the cable is bolted to the rock and you have to untie and retie your loop. This way you are never not connected to the cable.

On the way down I made my prusik loops with two loops instead of three to make it easier to slide the prusik down the cable. Technically you're probably not supposed to do this but at least for me the knot with two loops seemed to have more than enough friction to stop a fall.

Climbing with prusiks was also nice because at any point you can just lean back and rest.

For Thanksgiving Ryan and I decided to bring my sister on her first backpacking trip. We picked Joshua Tree because it's nearby and a relatively easy, flat hike and because I like Joshua Tree. There was a great lack of planning for this trip. The day before we left, I was browsing Alltrails and found "California Riding and Hiking Trail: Ryan Campground to Twin Tanks Section". I was somewhat familiar with the California Riding and Hiking Trail, and want to do it someday, but the full 38 miles was too long for this trip, and this section seemed nice and central.

Because we were flying down, we didn't want to pack too much stuff, so we didn't bring a tent. (We would have had to bring two 2-person tents.) We also only had two backpacking packs for the three of us, but that was fine because we weren't bringing much. I also didn't bring a camera. All of our stuff fit into one checked suitcase.

An approximate packing list:

• 2 backpacking packs
• Day hiking pack
• Double sleeping quilt (20 deg)
• Sleeping bag (20 deg)
• 2 inflatable sleeping pads
• 1 foam sleeping pad
• 2 plastic ground sheets
• 6 assorted 2-3L water bladders
• Some water bottles
• Headlamps
• Clothing (puffy jackets, socks, beanies, gloves)
• Misc (hygiene stuff, chargers, etc)

The trail is very flat, with almost no elevation gain, especially in the west to east direction. It crosses the Geology Tour Road at about halfway through this section. Right before getting to the Geology Tour Road there's a group of rock piles to the right of the trail. We camped there, and also found a man-made dam. After crossing Geology Tour Road there are more rocks to the left that also looked like good camp spots.

Trip stats

Distance: 10.8 miles
Time: 2 days
Dates: Nov 23 2022 - Nov 24 2022
Elevation change: +532/-1050 feet
Temperature: ~40-60 F
Permits required: No (at least for now)
Bear cans required: No

Hiking log

We started at Ryan Campground at about 1:30pm. The trail was very nice, flat and sandy so walking went quickly. Every mile was also clearly marked. We started the trail at mile marker 18. Since the total mileage was around 10 miles we wanted to find a camping spot around 5 miles in. Because we didn't have a tent I was a little concerned it would be too windy.

We saw a nice split rock so we decided to climb on top of it.

There was a pile of pink rocks, maybe quartz?

At around the 13 mile marker, we saw some large rock piles to the right of the trail, which seemed like a good place to camp. The map showed a little turn off from the trail that seemed to go to the rock piles. The turn off was marked with three buried horizontal joshua tree segments.

We lost the trail a little way in so we just walked until we got to the rock pile.

Probably the most interesting thing here was this dam-like structure. The dirt behind the dam was damp; maybe there was water here recently. In the area we saw some planks of wood with bent nails stuck inside. There were also the remnants of a campfire and a wrapped bundle of firewood, probably from some other campers. I was curious about this dam so after the trip I tried looking for information about it online, but the only mention of it that I found was this blog post. Although this particular dam seems relatively unknown, there are apparently lots of other dams, or "tanks", in Joshua Tree.

We set our sleeping spot right on top of the used campfire. We didn't bring a tent, so we just laid our plastic tarps, sleeping pads, and sleeping bags down. The dirt in the area was very damp, and there were large meadows of green grass, which felt unusual to see in Joshua Tree. Also interesting to note is that there are hardly any bugs in Joshua Tree, which is the only reason I am willing to camp tentless. I don't think I recall ever seeing a bug in Joshua Tree, although there must be some out there. For dinner we picked a rock and watched the sunset while eating salami sandwiches.

Sunset was around 4:45pm; by 5:30 it was dark. So we were lying in our sleeping bags for a while just looking at the stars. It happened to be a new moon, so the stars were very visible. We even saw a few meteors. Shortly after sundown several bats flew above us. Sometime later in the middle of the night we heard a group of coyotes howling. There was almost no wind until early morning, maybe 3am or so.

Breakfast and the rest of the hike out continued to be windy. The end of the section meets up with the Arch Rock trail to White Tank Campground so we walked through that trail and read some of the informational signs about rock formations.

I planned this trip after seeing a blog post about it and seeing that permits were available. I then invited Sam, who came over all the way from New York.

Trip stats

Distance: 30.2 miles
Time: 4 days
Dates: Aug 5 2022 - Aug 8 2022
Elevation change: +/-10500
Temperature: ~45-80 F
Permits required: Yes
Bear cans required: Yes
Caltopo map: https://caltopo.com/m/35LH2

Trail description, parking, and marmots

The loop is in the Mineral King area, which is in the southern end of Sequoia National Park. Getting to the trailhead requires driving 25 miles on the Mineral King road. This part of the road is windy and narrow at times and takes 1.5 hours to drive.

It seems more popular to hike the trail clockwise (starting from the Timber Gap trailhead) rather than counterclockwise (starting from the Sawtooth Pass trailhead). The trailhead determines which permit you have to get. We ran into one or two groups who said they were going counterclockwise because that was the only available permit remaining.

We did the hike in 4 days.

Day 1: 8 miles, +3300 ft, -2500 ft. This felt like a good amount of hiking for the first day, especially with a slightly late start. Camped at Pinto Lake; the campsite was a little crowded.

Day 2: also 8 miles, +3300 ft, -1800 ft. Almost all of the elevation was done the first half of the day, so it felt easier by the end of the day. Camped at the largest Big Five Lake, which was a small branch from the main loop trail.

Day 3: 10 miles, +3200 ft, -3000 ft. This day was longer than originally planned, since we went on to camp at Monarch Lake instead of in Lost Canyon. Monarch Lake is also a popular campground; we saw several large groups there.

Day 4: 4.5 miles, -2650 ft. Short day.

If I were to do this hike in 3 days and 2 nights, I would probably camp at Pinto Lake and Lost Canyon.

I had read about the parking lot marmot problem (evil marmots destroying your car), so we brought a tarp, but when we got to the trailhead no one else’s car was tarped, so we didn’t bother. After our hike we saw two cars with tarps. August is just after the end of the season in which tarps are recommended.

Weather

There was some thunder and rain on the forecast for the weekend; we got lucky and barely saw any. It was drizzling when we arrived at the ranger station, but it cleared up right as we started hiking. It also rained during the night on our third night at Monarch Lake.

The weather was fairly warm, probably in the 60s and 70s during the day and somewhere in the 40s at night. It did not feel warm enough to jump into any lakes.

Hiking log

Day 1: Timber Gap Trailhead to Pinto Lake (8 miles)


We drove up to the Mineral King ranger station right around 10am. It was drizzling and there was a small line to pick up permits. When getting our permit the ranger asked us about food storage and we hadn’t brought bear cans for this trip because I thought they weren’t required. Some of our planned campsites had bear storage containers, but not all, so the ranger made us rent a bear can. Apparently counterweighted hangs were also an accepted method of food storage. Our original planned itinerary was to camp at Pinto Lake, Big Five Lakes, and as far up Lost Canyon as possible. The ranger seconded that Lost Canyon would be a good camp spot for the reason of getting over Sawtooth Pass first thing in the morning in case of thunderstorms.

From the ranger station it was a short drive to the trailhead parking lot.

The rain stopped shortly after we started hiking. The trail up to Timber Gap was steadily uphill but not too steep. The recent rain led to a nice backdrop of clouds in the mountains.

At the top of Timber Gap we saw some other hikers.

After Timber Gap the trail goes downhill to cross Cliff Creek, then rises again toward Black Rock Pass. We passed by a ranger who checked our permits and told us that she had so far passed 10 people (or 10 groups?) camping at Pinto Lake so it would be pretty crowded.

We arrived at the Pinto Lake campground at about 7pm. It was in fact crowded, but we found a decent site. We didn’t actually see the lake (according to the map it should have been close to the trail, but maybe was hidden by some trees). We filtered our water at Cliff Creek, which was right by the campsite.

The site was in a wooded area. We found a spot to watch the sunset and had instant ramen for dinner.

Day 2: Pinto Lake to Big Five Lakes (8 miles)

The day started with a long uphill over Black Rock Pass, but the rest of the day was relatively easy.

From the trail up to Black Rock Pass you could see three lakes: Spring Lake, Cyclamen Lake, and Columbine Lake.

At the top of Black Rock Pass you can see more lakes on the other side; probably the Little Five Lakes and Big Five Lakes.

Here is Ryan talking about brown blazing to another group we met at the top of the pass. (Brown blazing is the questionable practice of trying to use only established restrooms while backpacking instead of digging holes outside even though the established restrooms are too far apart).

Then the trail descends quickly to one of the Little Five Lakes. This picture shows the one right by the trail.

About two miles later there's a small detour from the trail that leads to some of the Big Five Lakes. We ended up setting up camp near the largest Big Five Lake. We didn't see anyone else here even though there were a lot of people at Pinto Lake the night before.

There were a lot of fish creating ripples in the lake and at one point a fish jumped out of the water.

Day 3: Big Five Lakes to Monarch Lake (10 miles)

Our original plan for this day was to have a slightly short day and camp at the top of Lost Canyon right before the trail starts climbing to Columbine Lake, since that’s the last place camping is allowed before getting to the other side of Sawtooth Pass. Originally the ranger had advised us to camp there because there was a chance of thunder and it’s better to cross Sawtooth Pass earlier in the morning.

In the morning we considered going all the way to Monarch Lakes and decided to figure it out once we got to the camping spot at Lost Canyon.

The path from Big Five Lakes to Lost Canyon was a little uphill and mostly wooded. Lost Canyon was a nice open meadow area, with a stream going through the middle. The end of the canyon is a good spot for camping, with large boulders and good flat sandy areas for pitching tents. We reached that part a little after noon, and had a tortilla lunch. At this point a ranger was walking through and asked for our permit holder name (but not the actual permit). We asked how long it would take to get to Monarch Lakes, and after thinking for a bit he said 4 hours and 45 minutes. This turned out to be an oddly accurate estimate. It was about 1:30pm and the sky seemed clear so we decided to continue to Monarch Lakes.

The section going up to Columbine Lake was uphill but mostly switchbacks and not too steep.

Columbine Lake is nested in a high, rocky part of the mountain. Camping used to be allowed here, but not any more. It feels a bit exposed, especially with potential thunderstorms coming and some wind, but it would have been a beautiful spot to camp. We stopped for a bit to fill our waters and kept going.

The next section was steep and rocky, more of a scrambling than a walking trail. The route was marked with cairns because it wasn't obviously visible.

After that the trail became sandy and switchbacked up to Sawtooth Pass. It felt steep, but maybe we were just more tired and at higher elevation (around 11,600 ft?).

You get a good view of Sawtooth Peak from the pass. Apparently it's climbable, but it looks frightening.

The descent to Monarch Lakes is mostly sandy stuff that you can slide down. We were told previously by rangers to not go directly down because of how steep it is, and to instead do a little detour around the side, so we tried to do that. I think we might have detoured too far, though, because we then had to cut across a significant amount to the left, which was somewhat sketchy, and added a ton of time to the hike. Looking back from Monarch Lake, it would have been much faster to just go directly down, and sliding down steep sand is actually much easier than walking down a steep gravel or dirt trail.

We reached the campground right before sunset. This campsite had somewhat designed areas for camping, and even had a pit toilet (with three walls, no door, and a plank for a toilet lid). It was pretty busy, with a few large groups. There was also a bunch of wildlife here. A few deer walked through the site when we first got there. Right before going to bed, we saw some mice in Ryan's backpack. There were also several white-tailed ptarmigans.

Another instant ramen dinner with sunset view.

Day 4: Monarch Lake to Trailhead (4.5 miles)

The hike out was pretty short and straightforward. We saw two marmots.  Despite the marmots our car was safe and we were able to drive home.