Yesterday I returned from a 5 day, 40.5 mile backpack trip on the Big and Little Five Lakes loop in Mineral King with my partners-in-crime, Ellen and Marilyn. Last Monday, after the long freeway drive and the insane 25 mile twisty one-lane drive to Mineral King that takes forever to drive, we car-camped and readied our packs for our journey. On Tuesday, after picking up our permit and learning that there was a 20% chance of rain that day and nice weather for the rest of the week, we started up to Franklin Lake. Upon arrival the clouds spat a few drops of rain at us, nothing to fret over.
The next day we headed over Franklin Pass, an other-worldly site with bizarre rock formations on a barren Sandy landscape. We had lunch at Forrester Lake and continued on to Little Claire Lake. Having a little more steam left over, we descended switchbacks to the next valley floor and pitched our tents.
On Thursday we trekked on toward Big Five Lakes. A frightful wind stirred up as we neared the lake, and upon arrival the foremost objective was to quickly find a campsite that offered some shelter from the wind. Then, much to our astonishment, it began to snow lightly! We found a huge downed tree trunk and pitched against it, tying our tents to it to keep them from becoming airborne. When I went down to the lake to gather water there were huge whitecaps and even small breakers slapping the shoreline!
The next morning we were elated to behold that the weather had passed, and headed out for Little Five Lakes. We had a nice lunch on the banks in the warm sun. A kindly ranger made his way around the lake to great us and ask us to keep an eye out for a "late returning" hiker. After lunch we decided to keep on truckin' and head over Black Rock Pass. It was a very hard pull up, but well worth it. When I made it to the Pass it was the happiest moment of the trip for me as my endorphins had kicked in and I was witnessing the grand view of a huge section of the Sierra. Then we travelled back down the other side of the Pass and were ready to make camp in the first available flat spot. We found one, and I went x-country to scout water. I found water in Cliff Creek, but we would have needed 30' of rope to rappel down to it. Duh, THAT'S why it is called Cliff Creek! We continued on to the distant and elusive Pinto Lake where we spent the night.
On Saturday we hiked out. In addition to being one of the most high-mileage days, we had to navigate obnoxious "baby-head-sized" talus forever and had to ascend an extra 2,400' to Timber Gap. It was smooth sailing from there on out with beautiful fall-colored foliage and sighting a deer with her two fawns right as we neared the trailhead.
Beginning our trek on a Tuesday we saw a total of 8 other hikers plus one ranger in the whole 5 days. When we returned to the car on Saturday there were hoards of cars and horse trailers in the parking area. (And, please don't get me started on pack animals and poop!)
I know I always say it after a Sierra trip, but this was the best trip EVER!
Pictures soon to come! Stay tuned!