70 Year Old Couple Looking for Sierra Trip Within Our Capabilities

Is that 2,500 to 3,500 feet of elevation per day or for the whole trip?

Are you thinking Northern Sierra or South?

And do you want to be hiking every day or have some rest days?

Have you looked at the High Sierra loop? I don’t recall the mileage, but you can opt for staying in their tent cabins at the end of each night with a hot dinner and shower, and cut down immensely on the needed pack contents, essentially day packing for the most part. Maybe it isn’t what you are into – I hiked it a few years back except I stayed in the adjacent backpacking camps. I don’t recall the elevations or mileage, but I only remember one day being a little rough, the walk up to Vogelsang. I am sure there are many options, but that one was nice and had lots of great views.

https://www.travelyosemite.com/lodging/high-sierra-camps/

Take a look at a section of the Tahoe Rim Trail.  Last year before I did the JMT solo, my wife and I did the 35 mile section between Barker Pass and Echo Lake.  Fits your needs of plenty of lakes to swim in.  Barker Pass summit beginning with a nice gradual downhill (easy shuttle drop off point) and we left a car at Echo Lake so when we were done we had our car there.  While not running last summer, in normal times you can take a ferry across the lake instead of hiking the last 5 miles – a nice way to end a hike.

As I recall, the area north of Tuolumne Meadows is generally not as steep and not as crowded.

I you have a car shuttle a very nice hike is from Echo Lake off Hwy 50 up and over Dick’s Pass and then all the way down to Emerald Bay… but a lot of down hill at the end can be hard on the knees. Some very nice lakes on the way.

Katie and I want to thank all of you. We got some great suggestions that will take us into new areas which is always fun. We’re looking into the various suggestions now and I’m guessing we’ll find a trip that is perfect for us. Katie was very impressed with the BPL community and how people reached out to help us.

If it’s ok I may contact a few responders directly. We have a few questions that will help our planning.

Once again, thank you all so very much!

Katie and Renee

To DWR D,

The elevation gain is for the whole trip. The reason for the low mileage is that we like to get to camp early in the day so we have lots of time to rest, sit and enjoy our surroundings and of course for Katie to swim. We don’t generally take days off but love our long afternoons and evening in camp.

Thanks for asking for clarification

Renee

We are looking into an Echo Lake trip. We have to figure out if we need to take two car or can we arrange a shuttle. I was wondering what you did, two cars or a shuttle service of some sort?

Thanks again,

Renee

Hi Flat Hat,

Thanks for the suggestion. It looks very, very interesting. I was wondering if you used a shuttle service and if so would you mind letting me know with who and and how you made the arrangements?

Thanks,

Renee

Hi Michael,

We’ve done the High Sierra route. It was beautiful! we even had lunch at the place you mentioned. It’s very expensive to stay there but the lunch was reasonable.

The trail was very heavily handled with lots of people. We ended up following and unused trail and went north for about three miles and ended up with a beautiful camp site and we were all alone. Made our trip!

Thanks you!

Renee

Yeah, like I said, I stayed in the backpackers camps while on the loop. It was not crowded when I went, but I know I am generally more tolerant of crowds than others, so maybe I didn’t notice. I did enjoy buying shower time !

One other idea, since this is a COVID year and reservations and permits are a bit of challenge.  You might look at the classic Emigrant Wilderness loop, out of Crabtree–out to the east for a couple of days to Bucks Lakes, then back via the other route.  There are two parallel trails there, one through Camp Lake, Deer Lake, etc.  And then back along Woods Lake and Grouse Lake.

At least currently, permits there are free and not on a quota system.

One of the most enjoyable Sierra trips I ever did was on the way home from seeing the eclipse. We just showed up at the Ranger Station in Mammoth and asked for a permit wherever it was open. We gave him some fake campsites for each night. Then we went in and just wandered aimlessly. We found a nice little lake to take a skinny dip. Then we decided to see if we could climb up to some high alpine lakes, but there was too much snow to get there, so we camped along a beautiful alpine stream in a copse of trees and watched the alpenglow. So pretty. Then we wandered off to see other things and camp other places. We really didn’t care where we went or how many or few miles we went. It was the most relaxing and enjoyable time I’ve ever had in the Sierras.

I agree that Echo lake is a fine jumping off point for hiking into Desolation Wilderness. There are plenty of lakes! From Aloha, the easy pass over to Dicks Lake/Velma Lakes is nice. You could potentially backtrack and stay at some other lakes on a loop back to Echo lake.

Or, if you come out from Velma lakes onto the Tahoe road, I strongly suggest taking the Bayview route over the Eagle Falls route. Bayview is far more scenic. Actually, if you’re unfamiliar with Lake Tahoe, Bayview will show it off quite nicely.

In the time frame that you mention, there will be plenty of people. also, this is a very rocky hike. Aloha is beautiful but campsites are rocky. Same with Dicks and the Velmas.

It’s possible to get away from the worst crowds by taking the very easy Mosquito pass to the Rubicon trail. To be honest I’ve never done this but I ahve a memory of being able to reconnect that trail with the Bayview trail.

Have you considered the trails out of Bridgeport? There’s very fine scenery going up to Peeler Lake, and you could easily spend a day walking without packs from there to the very beautiful Crown lake and back (with gorgeous lakes in between). Moving on from Peeler it’s all flat meadows for miles, with another lake(I forget the name) easily accessible and just off trail about five miles from Peeler. In other words, you could wander for several days without packs and have easy moves between camps, and then return all downhill and flat. The first day climb is on very good trail.

Oh p.s the trails  out of Reds Meadows going north towards Yosemite are very beautiful. And there are several gorgeous lakes. Lots of possibilities–but check out Iceberg Lake.

The thing is, you can also hire a packer out of Reds Meadows to carry everything and even serve up great meals if you like that sort of thing. You can walk and let the horses carry your packs. They travel separate from you and meet you at the next camp. Nice.

Echo Lake to Emerald Bay… I hitched back to Echo Lake… but that was maybe 30 years ago… and no Covid :)

But like suggested above, you could do an out and back… Aloha Lake is so gorgeous… you could camp one night at one end and another night at the other end…

DWR D

And regarding August… hmm… years ago that used to be the primo month in the High Sierra… now… not so much… now it is smoke month from all the wildfires…. I’d get it done before August…

DWR D

DWR D makes a very good point. This will be a low snow load year with an early melt. June would easily work in Desolation, and out of Reds or Bridgeport for that matter, most likely.

The Groundhog Meadow Loop that originates on the Eastern Side of the Sierra in the Inyo National Forest out of the Horseshoe Meadow Trail Head (Cottonwood Lakes) at roughly 30 miles might work.

https://goldentroutwilderness.wordpress.com/2016/07/15/trip-report-groundhog-meadow-loop/#:~:text=User%20rhyang%20from%20the%20High%20Sierra%20Topix%20did,and%20finishes%20the%20loop%20back%20at%20Horseshoe%20Meadow.

Hi Renee,

The wife and I used two cars (2020), dropped one at Echo Lake,  the other at Barker Pass for our start.  We could have taken a shuttle from Echo to Barker for $100, but preferred to be Covid safer and use two cars. We live in the wine country just north of SF Bay Area, not too far away. We are in our early 60’s.

A couple other suggestions would be something from the Cottonwood Pass trailhead or the Big Pine trailhead on the East side of the Sierra. Cottonwood Lakes trail is a popular 16 mile loop with lots of options for side trips to extend as desired. Same goes for Big Pine Lakes trail. Both are very mild trails as far as elevation gain goes.

When I was leading backpacking trips in the Sierra, one nice spot for the scenery but gradual slope was out of Florence Lake (there’s a “ferry” = skiff) across the lake up the Evolution Valley. If you do the whole thing into the Alpine zone it’s about 7300′ to 9600′ with total cummulative vertical gains of 3770 feet over the 30.7 which calculates to 2300 of elevation gained plus 700 feet of PUDs (Pointless Ups and Downs) each direction over 30.7 miles (round trip).  But as an out&back, you could shorten the horizontal and reduce the vertical by turning around at any point.  LOTS of potential side trips off the main trail if you want to fish some lake no one has visited for weeks.

Not sure if you’re LowCal or NoCal, but Lassen NP has several loops in that range of length and climb.  I’ve long considered Lassen the most “right-sized” NP since it’s big enough to offer a wide variety of short to long hikes and attractions (volcanic features, lava caves, ice caves, overland hiking, Nordic,  Alpine and backcountry skiing in winter) without being so iconic to draw the crowds that Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon do.

plus one on David’s suggestions, including Lassen! elevation is a consideration if you’re coming from sea level or thar’bouts.

Love Lassen, I took my family last June.