TRIP DETAILS
TRAIL MAP
OVERVIEW
Notes:
- A year prior to this trip, I went up to South Lake on my way to Palisade Basin by myself. I was so taken with the fall colors that I started thinking about a return trip with my fiance, Tina, and our dog, Juniper, to the area immediately when I got back home. A year later, we did the trip. But this time, we timed it a little too early. The colors around the North Lake area were still pretty spectacular, though. The time for peak colors varies from year to year, so it's hard to time it perfectly. But still, I think next time we'll wait until October starts to see if we can catch it a bit closer to the peak.
- While driving out to the Eastern Sierras, my car's navigation system continuously warned us about severe weather conditions. The predictions weren't wrong. This was one of the coldest and windiest backpacking trips I've ever done. Consequently, we didn't cover nearly as much ground as we had hoped we would.
Elevation Profile (Mileage Underestimated)
TRIP LOG
When we got on the road at around 0545, one of the first things that greeted us was a notification from my car's navigation system, alerting us of strong winds and winter conditions. I know what you're thinking. What a fantastic way to start a backpacking trip, right?
We had already seen the forecast the previous couple of days, so this wasn't really a surprise. Still, as we drove over Tioga pass and saw the temperature plummet on the thermometer, I was starting to think about how nice it would be to just settle for a couple of nights at the Best Western in Bishop and do some day hikes to see the foliage.
About five hours from when we started the drive, we were in Bishop. We picked up our permit at the White Mountain Ranger Station and then got fishing permits across the street at Reagan's Sporting Goods right down the street before we started the drive west towards the mountains.
As soon as we turned off of 168 and started heading up the windy, one lane road to North Lake, the fall colors burst out in glorious fashion.
The road is surrounded by quaking aspens of all kinds. Tall ones, tiny ones, thick ones, pencil thin ones...you name it. While their beauty was consuming most of my attention on the drive, a good portion was also being stolen away by the furious winds that were driving them side to side and making their silver dollar leaves flicker incessantly.
Immediately upon exiting the car, the wind hit us like a slap in the face. The view up towards Piute Canyon was enticing, but not enough to dissolve the apprehension about the conditions we were getting ourselves into.
Tina and I decided we'd go for it. We convinced ourselves that we weren't going to die from a bit of cold and severe wind. If anything, we'd just be a bit miserable for a few days. And everyone knows that misery builds character, right?
The walk from the parking lot (which is very well marked, and has a pit toilet, but no potable water) to the trailhead is about 3/4 of a mile or so along a gravel road. The aspens were pretty magnificent along this stretch, so it wasn't that bad. When we finally got to North Lake Campground, we were both impressed with the sites. It's quite a nice spot in terms of car camping, and it looked like there were a few sites that you couldn't drive to, which is pretty cool.
It was a relief to finally reach the shelter of the forest, as the many trees supressed the wind a bit. The beginnings of the trail were extremely pleasant. Huge copses of aspens,
a few log bridges crossing quiet streams...
...it was rather enchanting.
After a mile or so, and a gain of about a thousand feet, we left the shelter of the trees and entered a more exposed area.
Tina was starting to feel the 10,500+ ft. elevation a bit, and I was continually looking ahead for a spot to camp where we might get some reprieve from the wind, which was definitely picking up. There looked to be an attractive spot to the north of the trail just before it starts to rise toward Loch Leven, that seemed to be equipped with a large rock wall and plenty of trees.
Our hope was that if we got to that rock wall, we'd be sheltered from the tunneling wind that was shooting down the canyon, and only have to deal with some turbulence and cross-winds, however strong they might be. So right before the trail crossed the stream for the first time, we diverged from it and headed up into the little granite bowl just to the northeast and below Loch Leven. There were several good, flat spots to camp. We finally settled on one just above the bowl (you can actually see it as the last blue waypoint if you zoom in all the way on the map).
There was a decently flat section of ground to set up our tent on,
and perhaps even a natural wind barrier to cook in that Tina had found.
It ended up being an ok site. The only real problem was that a water source was a 1/4 mile or so away. I thought I could use a shortcut up the little gullies just to the southwest of our camp to get up to Loch Leven, but it didn't end up saving me any time over just going back down to the trail and heading up from there. I ended up pulling water from a small tairn just below Loch Leven and then hiking back on the trail to the spot where we diverged, and following the same route we had taken before to get to our campsite.
It was only about 6 o'clock, but the temperature was already below freezing and the winds were starting to howl mightily. So we decided to, perhaps inadvisably, eat in our tent. The bitter cold helped us convince ourselves that any bears or mountain lions would probably be hunkering down during this storm just like we were. After we had brushed our teeth and put everything away, the only thing either of us wanted to do was get in our sleeping bags and get our bodies warm.
I don't think Tina, Juniper, or I got more than a couple of hours of sleep that night. It felt like somebody was constantly punching the tent walls. I'm happy we brought along the four season tent, though. It held up pretty darned well.
The temperature reached about 18 or 19 degrees F that night. Luckily, both of our bags were rated accordingly. On the bright side, going outside to pee was quite exhilarating.
When we woke up the next morning, there was a nice coating of snow outside of our tent.
I had heard the snow falling throughout the night, and it was quite a welcome sound compared to the brawling blows of the wind. When I crawled outside of the tent and saw the depth of the snow, I thought, "I have to give the weather folks credit. They pretty much nailed the 1-2 inches in their forecast."
It was most definitely a slow start to the morning. Everything was frozen, and the wind was probably still gusting around 20-30 mph. We decided to cook breakfast with our stove inside the tent, which definitely didn't seem like the smartest move. But it also seemed like the only move we had given how frozen our solid food was and how nearly impossible it would be to cook out in the open, behind whatever wind barrier we could muster up.
When the sunlight finally fully crept into our space, Juni was excited to warm her black coat in its glow.
That poor dog...the things we put her through. We did try to warm her up with any and every piece of fabric we could find, though.
Even after the sunlight had fully bathed our campsite, the temperature echoed the feelings in our fingers and limbs as we broke down the tent. I couldn't believe how fast the heat was sucked away from my fingertips as I folded up the tent poles that morning.
It was bloody cold. Looking back, I don't actually think it got above freezing until about 1400 that day. Yikes, yikes, yikes.
When we finally got moving up the trail,
we quickly reached the small tairn that I had filled our water bottles at the night before. I was quite entertained by how thick the ice was, and so was Tina. She kept tossing bigger and bigger rocks onto the icy surface to see just how thick and strong the ice was. She captured some pretty great shots.
Despite the constant, intense wind, we were still able to enjoy the gorgeous views we encountered as we moved up the trail.
I will admit, I was not in the best mood at this point. My fingers were burning from the cold, I had lost my fishing rod while climbing between limber pines the night before, and the wind was making it impossible to do anything peacefully. But Tina managed to find a bit of shelter from the wind along Loch Leven,
and after boiling a bit of of hot water and making some tea, I felt much better.
When we reached Piute Lake, I thought it looked like a fanastic place to camp and fish (you'll see some pictures of us fishing at it in the trip pictures). We kept marching up the trail, and shortly after leaving the confines of the lake, we got our first glimpse of the pass.
The view back down towards the canyon was really quite superb. The medley of colors in the turquoise tairn and the red heather next to the frozen stream was rather beautiful even though the air was so unwelcoming.
When we finally reached the pass, it was about 1300, and we were both quite hungry. We took a brief moment to enjoy the views over to Summit Lake,
and over to the south,
but then we quickly sought shelter. We managed to get a decent blockade from the wind and had a quick lunch, during which we talked about what our plan should be. Initially, we were thinking of exploring Humprhey's Basin. But that was when I thought we'd have nice, late September Sierra weather, and we'd be swimming and laying out on the granite to soak in the sun. The cold was slowing us down quite a bit, and so was my knee, which was not feeling anywhere near 100%.
We ended up deciding that we'd just head back down to Piute Lake and camp there for the night. We'd have a much better chance of finding shelter from the tormenting wind, and we'd have plenty of time to fish.
Turning back didn't feel incredibly satisfying, but I'm glad we did. Piute Lake is an excellent place to camp. Plenty of flat spots speckle the north shore. After setting up our tent and doing some fishing,
storm clouds quickly moved in.
I managed to catch a little rainbow trout,
but while trying to get him off the hook, I realized I couldn't really move my fingers very well due to the fact that they were frozen stiff. Tina had already gone back to the tent, and when I arrived myself, I was glad she was able to heat up my hands with her warm hands.
We ended up eating in the tent again that night. A tasty dinner of ramen, beef jerky, and pumpkin seeds, followed by a dessert of chocolate. It snowed on and off while we were preparing to retire for the evening. But later on, when I got up to pee, the clouds had vanished and the stars were absolutely brilliant. I tried to tolerate the cold for as long as I could to soak them in, and boy oh boy, did it feel good to get back in that sleeping bag.
When Tina got up in the morning to go to the bathroom, she alerted me to the beautiful alpenglow that had struck the mountains to the north. I quite enjoyed watching it from my sleeping bag, holding Juni tightly beside me to warm her up.
The third day was simply a repeat of what we did on the first day (in the opposite direction, of course). So there isn't much else to tell. But we did have the fortunate opportunity to watch a Clark's Nutcracker while we stopped for a break at one point.
The wind had died down substantially, and the cold had started to subside. So it was easily the most pleasant day of the trip. When we finally arrived at the entrancing forest and saw the magnificent light shining through the aspens once again,
we started thinking about planning a trip the next fall.