A Stormy Sierra Weekend: One Summit, Buckets of Rain, One Fish, and a Mosquito Invasion

A Stormy Sierra Weekend: One Summit, Buckets of Rain, One Fish, and a Mosquito Invasion

Friday night storms
Friday night storms

With our longer Sierra trip coming up soon, we wanted to head out last weekend and get in some hiking and sleeping at altitude. I always feel better when I get some time above 10k before hauling a heavy pack up there. Our intended trip was to head out to Laurel Lakes (just south of Mammoth), climb Laurel and Bloody Mountains, followed by camping and fishing at Laurel Lakes. Sunday would be another ~10k peak with a short hike. It sounded perfect, at least until we looked at the weather forecast.
The thing about the Eastern Sierra is that even if your original plans fall through there is always something else equally fun to do. So we headed out despite the forecast, figuring that we’d find something to do no matter what.
As we drove out on Friday night we watched the enormous storm clouds hovering over the mountains. They were beautiful as the sun set and they glowed bright pink. By the time we made it through the mountains the clouds had cleared and we pulled into a dispersed campsite outside of June Lake where we slept under the stars in the back of the truck.
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Bear Lake: Emigrant Wilderness

Bear Lake: Emigrant Wilderness

We headed up to Emigrant Wilderness for an overnighter last weekend. Conditions are still rapidly changing with snow in the high country causing both difficult travel and dangerous creek crossings.…

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Steelhead Lake to Pine Creek Trailhead: Bear Lakes Loop Day 8

Steelhead Lake to Pine Creek Trailhead: Bear Lakes Loop Day 8

Between Steelhead and French Lakes
Between Steelhead and French Lakes

The sun was up and I poked my face out of my tent, still wrapped up in my warm sleeping bag like a burrito. My water bottle was frozen. Hm, that was a first for this trip.

Our original plan was to have an easy day down to Honeymoon or Upper Pine Lake where we would have a relaxing last night on the trail before exiting and driving home on Sunday. Instead, we decided to cover the final 10 miles (2 cross-country, 8 on trail) and almost 5000 feet of descent in one day. After a successful trip with every summit on the list bagged, I certainly didn’t feel like we were cheating or bailing on our plans by exiting a day earlier than planned. Anyways, I only had one packet of Starbucks Via coffee left and we’d polished off the end of my bourbon the night before. The real world has coffee and beer. I was ready for the real world.

After packing up we took off cross-country towards French Lake. It was a really pretty little area with nice meadows and some campsites tucked away along a lightly flowing creek. At French Lake we dropped our packs for a quick snack and some photos. There are some relaxing looking beaches along the shore of this lake, but they didn’t look too tempting on this cold and windy morning. It wasn’t warming up like the previous days. There was an autumn-like chill in the air.

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Four Gables 12,720 feet: Bear Lakes Loop Day 7

Four Gables 12,720 feet: Bear Lakes Loop Day 7

Steelhead Lake shore - well follow the green ramp on the left
Steelhead Lake shore – we’ll follow the green ramp on the left and avoid the talus (for now). The chute we’ll take to the summit plateau is visible as well.

It was really cold when we woke up at Steelhead Lake on the morning of day 7.  We had this high and exposed lake to ourselves though, and that was worth the cold morning. Although we had passed several people around the lakes along the trail, a short distance of cross-country travel seemed to discourage anyone from reaching Steelhead Lake other than us.

While sucking down my next-to-last packet of Starbucks Via I wandered to the top of the hill behind our camp and found some other nice campsites, and although the views were better than from our measly little spot, the exposure to the wind kept me from wanting to move my stuff. The view across French Canyon to Feather, Royce, and Merriam Peaks was clear and impressive. It may have been a bit colder this morning, but the crisp clear sky was encouraging. Time to bag another peak!

We had vague descriptions about two class 2 routes up Four Gables from Steelhead Lake, and both started with us needing to get ourselves to the far end of the lake, so along the shore we went. There was a bit of rock hopping and lots of stopping for photos. It’s a beautiful deep blue lake. It would be even more amazing on a still day, but today the wind was kicking up some waves.

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Bear Lakes Basin Tour: Bear Lakes Loop Day 3
Vee Lake

Bear Lakes Basin Tour: Bear Lakes Loop Day 3

The main goal of this entire trip was to visit Bear Lakes Basin and climb Seven Gables. It is an area neither of us had seen and we really wanted to enjoy it, so we had two full days planned: one for the peak and one to freely explore the area. On this day, we decided to wander the Basin and scout the route for Seven Gables which we would climb the following day.
Bear Lakes Basin is only accessible via cross-country travel. No maintained trails go into the area which means there are very few people and the area has not been impacted by heavy hiker and stock use. The cross-country travel in this area is quite easy and fun. It is peaceful, incredibly scenic, and a perfect example of everything I love about being in the Sierra.

Seven Gables from Camp
Seven Gables from Camp

We had entered the basin the prior day via Dancing Bear Pass and saw no one while working our way down to Big Bear Lake via Black Bear and Ursa Lakes. However, as we started off this morning it wasn’t long before we ran into a group of three guys camped by Little Bear Lake. After a nice friendly chat that was only cut short by the need to escape mosquitoes, we continued down towards Vee Lake.

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Pine Creek to Granite Park: Bear Lakes Loop Day 1
Granite Park

Pine Creek to Granite Park: Bear Lakes Loop Day 1

Things started off weird.
After a warm night of car camping at nearby Horton Creek, Sooz and I headed up to Pine Creek to start our planned nine day adventure. Although early, there were some light poofballs of clouds. So that forecast of ‘hot, clear, and stable for the next week’ already seemed shot. Nuts.
Pine Creek is one of the few trailheads I hadn’t yet used to access the high country so I was looking forward to the new scenery. I knew it was going to be a big climb – our goal for the day was to get into Granite Park (7 miles and about 4000 feet of climbing) – but since I wasn’t familiar with the trail I didn’t know how easy or hard the climb would be. I can hike uphill all day on a well graded trail, or even when I’m working my way through a pile of talus, but those ‘sierra steps’ built for stock break my pace and really wear me down.

Pine Creek Trailhead
Pine Creek Trailhead

Fortunately, the first couple of miles follow an old mine access road and are wonderfully graded. We chugged up the hill, watching the Pine Creek Tungsten mine drop away below us, and eventually reached some old mining tunnels/prospects dug in the wall towering above the trail. We kept hearing voices but no one was on the trail in front of us. Eventually we saw the climbers on the rock and it all made sense.

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