Big Pine Lakes

Sunday morning we woke up early and crawled out of our tents. When the sun came up we could see that it had snowed all the way down to the base of the mountain. No wonder it was so cold in my tent. Instead of cooking breakfast, we took advantage of being so close to town and we picked up coffee on the way out of town. We headed back on 395 towards Big Pine Lakes. We parked at the trailhead and then walked over to look at the trout ponds at Glacier Lodge. The view was amazing.

Hiking On The John Muir Trail

We started off on our hike. We soon came across the sign that we were entering the John Muir Trail.

Blue Skies & Yellow Trees

I had an agenda of seeing a blue sky, yellow trees, and turquoise lakes. The storm from the day before had blown out and the sky was a brilliant blue. About a mile into our hike we started seeing fresh snow on the ground. This hike is on the tougher side of moderate, with lots of uphill switchbacks. We hiked next to Big Pine Creek the majority of the way.

At about 2 miles in we got to a meadow of Aspen trees and the leaves were magnificent yellows and oranges. We stopped and took millions of pictures. I must have muttered, “This is so beautiful” a hundred times.

Lon Chaney Cabin

We stopped and took a break at the old Lon Chaney Cabin. The cabin was built by the actor, but it is now owned by the Forest Service.

We Found The Snow

After the nice break at the cabin, it was back to more uphill and lots more switchbacks. We started to see a lot more snow. Every hiker we saw that was heading downhill stopped to tell us about their overnight experiences. The consensus was that nobody slept, because it was freezing cold and the wind was howling. We were warned to expect more snow the higher we got.

Big Pine Lake

Just when we thought we could not go another step uphill we saw a sign. Sally always gets excited when we see a sign because that means we’re close to something. This sign was for Big Pine Lake. We hiked up over the ridge and then caught a glimpse of lake number one through the trees. Cue the singing angels. The lake is stunning. The lakes get their color from particles from Palisade Glacier. The blue is so blue.

The trail is above the lake and we decided we would hike to the second lake instead of stopping. Lake number two is even more amazing because Temple Crag is the backdrop.

We scrambled down a trail to the shore. Again we took hundreds of pictures and we sat down to have a picnic lunch. While we were eating we could see the wind blowing snow on Temple Crag. Shortly after the wind started blowing across the lake and we were freezing. We decided it was time to head back.

Heading Back Down

There are five more lakes, but we decided that we would save those lakes for a day that was warmer. The hike back was just as amazing. This was one of the first hikes I have ever done and I did not want it to end. We hiked a little over 12 miles and it is safe to say that this hike is now my favorite one I have ever done.

Our Campsite at Lone Pine

We drove back to our campsite in Lone Pine. We still had plenty of daylight so we decided that we would cook dinner and make a fire. Sally and I split a big beer that she had brought for us as a treat. It was so cold that we started our campfire while it was still daylight. We ate rehydrated Mountain House Pasta Primavera and it tasted delicious after all our hiking. We sat around our campfire with big jackets and down blankets until we could not take the cold any longer. We climbed into our tents and got ready for another very cold night. The wind was howling again, but this time I took Alleve PM and wore earplugs. Thankfully I was finally able to sleep because on Day 3 we were heading up the Whitney Portal.