TL;DR
Explore a bit of the High Sierra trail on the way to one of the most stunning alpine lakes I have ever laid eyes on, Precipice Lake. We did this trip in 4 days, 3 nights. The mileage broke down to 11-9-9-11 roughly. We camped at Bearpaw Meadow the first night and third nights and Precipice Lake the second night. Precipice Lake sits at 10,000ft but the slow ascent of the High Sierra trail made the altitude almost unnoticeable.
Thoughts
This is one of those girl reads Backpacker Magazine, girl sees a pretty picture, girl plans trip kind of a story. I’ve wrote about this before, but I’ll say it again, its fascinating to see a plan come to fruition. What started as a simple browsing through a magazine sparked this years 4th of July adventure and our longest backpacking trip to date. The August 2015 issue of Backpacker had a section on their top 26 backcountry lakes. I love alpine lakes. I love the look of the granite, how smooth and bare it is and how suddenly it meets the water. The color of the water is also so pure with its blues and greens. But this lake, Precipice Lake, seemed unreal. It looks like a painting and the artist took liberties to make the sheer wall around it have dark and light stripes that seems completely out of place. The artist then had the audacity to reflect those striations in the lake itself making it look like some deep portal to a parallel world stood at on the other side. I had to go here.
I had never been to Sequoia National Park so I didn’t need much convincing. I looked up the information regarding the permits and the logistics of the hike then waited for the permit release date. Sequoia releases all their permits on the same day, unlike Yosemite who releases them 3 months in advance. Since this hike required something a bit longer than a weekend, we settled on 4th of July and surrounding days. Faxed (now its by email) in our application, got it, then waited for summer. Then the day finally came. We were off on our adventure.
Ironically, I had obsessed so much about the lake itself that I had neglected to look up much about the trail itself. Precipice Lake sits 20 miles in on the High Sierra trail. I was happily surprised as we started our hike after 1/2 a mile, the trail opens up on a long valley and stays there for the remainder of the hike. I would say 90% of the time you have views of that valley and can see how far you’ve come as well as your ultimate destination. The trail is lined with wildflowers this time of year as well as a myriad of butterflies that danced at your feet. Snowmelt waterfalls grace almost every inlet. This wasn’t some dusty dry boring trail. This was like walking into a Disney movie.
The first leg of our journey took us from Crescent Meadow to Bearpaw Meadow in 11 miles. We saw our first bear! Kind of a big guy tearing into a log about 40 feet upslope of the trail. He didn’t pay us any mind so we didn’t pay him any either and kept going. Bearpaw Meadow has a regular backpackers camp as well as a High Sierra camp for those who want a bit of luxury. We camped at the backpackers camp which isn’t much to be said for. Its down on the slope off the main trail. Not much flat ground. Water is available but not potable. Some of the sites do have an actually bear box which is nice for the overflow of food we brought for the 4 day trip. Campfires are allowed which was a God-send because we were also plagued by mosquitoes.
Day 2 blew us away. From Bearpaw Meadow we made our way up to Hamilton Lakes. The trail is set right on the edge of the mountainside, some portions are even blasted straight through the rock. You cross a waterfall then you’re in Valhalla. Valhalla is an area home to Hamilton Lakes and some striking granite faces. Hamilton Lakes are a stunning place all on their own. If you can manage a 17 mile day, I would highly recommend camping here. The lakes set at the base of a section of 3 miles of switchbacks which means that the mountains jut up right behind them.
The switchbacks looked like they were going to be the normal grudge but they ended up being not all that bad. Small waterfalls flowed down every few switchbacks allowing us to wet our hats before carrying on. Again, the greenery and the views were just breathtaking as you climb up right along one of the Hamilton Lakes. You top out at another lake that gives you nice overlook of the valley you just hiked up through. But you’re not quite there yet. A few more switchbacks and you come up on Eagle peak which has been in the background of everything throughout the entire hike on the High Sierra trail. At the base of Eagle Peak is Precipice Lake.
I couldn’t believe I was actually there. It was pretty surreal to be there in person.
We got there with enough time to relax, lay around, take pictures, set up camp, make dinner, and eat all before sunset. We watched the ice float around the lake and played around on the boulder field. There weren’t many campsites there, especially with all the snow coverage. But we got one that was up off the to the right of the trail to Kaweah Gap so we had views of both Valhalla and Precipice. An early sunset in the mountains sans clouds turned into the perfect star viewing night. One by one they came out until the whole of the Milky Way banded across the sky. D took some pretty amazing shots with his Sony Alpha. Unfortunately, my cameras aren’t up to caliber for night shots. We drifted off to sleep under the stars, snug in our bivies. What an amazing place to be. I still can’t believe it. It could’ve all been a dream.
The next morning we got up early to catch the sunrise and enjoy the lake a bit more before heading out. We would get to enjoy the cool morning air as we did the switchbacks down to Hamilton and then decided to lounge at the middle lake for an early lunch enjoying everything all over again. We camped at BearPaw again and then it was time to go home.
Valhalla – Angel Wings in the background
References
The original Backpacker Magazine article that inspired this trip can be found here.
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