Help four older, women backpackers adjust to age/health issues.

You might not like this idea, but consider taking up canoe or kayak camping.

Our goal is to keep on backpacking. We’ve done some car camping and that’s fun, too, but we need help with backpacking ideas now.

A couple of years ago, heading up to Bishop Pass, I met an elderly couple who were doing the JMT (plus side trips) by going about 6 miles per day.  They were completely happy being in no hurry, and seemed to be having a great time.  The Sierra is so filled with water, I have no doubt that you’ll be able to plan countless trips using your criteria.  Remember, you can likely climb up to 11,000ft or 12,000ft safely, as long as you don’t stay there very long (i.e., climb high, sleep low).

I’d suggest getting a good set of maps (Tom Harrison maybe), and plotting out your campsites so that you end each day near water, and at a lower altitude.  Take a camp chair, and a good camera, and enjoy the scenery and camaraderie!

Hi Jane :)

The Trinity Alps have some incredible views and lakes and possibilities for day hikes, all at much lower elevations than the Sierra.

Kat,
Yes, Ken T. has helped us with a couple of great trip ideas. We loved Canyon Creek trip to L lakes and the others, too. We hope to do more like that.

Jan,

One suggestion for Emigrant Wilderness would be loop out of Crabtree Trailhead.

1) It doesn’t have a trail head quota
2) It is roughly 4 hours drive from Palo Alto
3) You can create loops in the range of 10 to 20 miles. For example: Crabtree TH – Camp Lake – Bear Lake – Piute Lake – Gem Lake – Groundhog Meadow – Grouse Lake – Crabtree TH would be around 20 miles. Having views, granite and lakes. This loop would have a total of 3.6K ft of climb and would not go higher than 8250 ft. You would start to Camp Lake and do a side trip to Bear Lake for the first night (3.6 miles, 800 ft climb), then move to Piute Lake (5.9 miles, 1350 ft climb), continue to Groundhog Meadow (4.5 miles, 750 ft climb), back to Crabtree TH (5.8 miles, 700 ft of climb)
5) The Crabtree Camp trailhead offers restrooms and allows you to camp the night before/after you hike.

I’m glad you are still enjoying your time out there. May be we see each other at GGG 8 next weekend.

Manfred

What about inviting a couple of others to be your pack animals?  At least to haul some of the bulk in for you, but not necessarily camp with you? Or do?  We’ll talk next week.

Manfred,
Thanks for specific suggestions which are very helpful. Your plan sounds very doable. Yes, I’ll be at GGG soon so if you have other suggestions I’ll listen for sure!

Hadn’t thought of human packers but we have thought of using a pack station to haul stuff in for us and we would do all the hiking. One mule can carry all four backpacks if you keep the weight to usual weights and then you also have to pay for a packer. It’s also possible to use a packer to take packs to altitude and then come out later on your own, no animals.
Let’s talk more at GGG.

Here are a few ideas you might look at:

Grouse Ridge off Bowman Lake Road off Highway 20/80 on the way to Donner Pass.  You can start you hike at the fire lookout on Grouse Ridge, and hike down to about ten different lakes, all within about a five mile hike.  So you could easily hike around there for a few days, and the good news is that when you hike back UP to the fire lookout, your packs are empty and will weigh a lot less.

Carson Pass has some nice destinations as well.  You could easily hike to Meiss Meadow, Showers Lake,  Round Lake and Dardanelles….and if you have two cars, you could even make this a bit of a through-hike to Echo Summit along the Pacific Crest Trail.

South of Carson Pass are a couple of nice lakes as well–Winnemucca and Round Top.  They are within 2 miles of the trailhead, and about 2 miles from each other.  So you could hike as slowly as you like and still arrive with lots of time left over.   Some of the initial trail out of Woods Lake is steep, but just take it nice and slow.

I saw the suggest about Emigrant Wilderness.  We’ve done quite a few hikes there.  Lost and Sword Lakes (in Carson-Iceberg Wilderness, north of Highway 108) might work…only five miles.  But you might have lots of younger company there, and those young folks might want to party a bit.  We went when there was still snow on the ground in early June, and had the place to ourselves.

You could also work out a trip from Crabtree Trailhead (behind Dodge Ridge) to Grouse Lake and the Chain Lakes, but the camping at Grouse Lake isn’t great—it gets lots of horse traffic.  Camp Lake, in that same area, is lovely, and you could continue on to Bear Lake from there.

On the East side on 108 you can find Roosevelt and Lane Lakes, and make a loop through to Secret Lake.    Just a bit further South, look at the Green Lake area—lots of Lakes to explore within five miles of the trailhead.  And Virginia Lakes, the next trailhead south, is similar.  Neither of those make you hike over the pass to get to the lakes…

But even better would be Twenty Lake Basin on the east side of Yosemite out of Saddlebag Lake.  There are lots of lakes (20!?) and you can explore to your hearts’ content there.   You can also access that area through Lundy Canyon off 395

If you keep heading south on 395, look at LIttle Lakes Valley–a perfect spot for what you’re looking to do.  And if you feel up to it, you can hike over Piute Pass and spend days exploring Humphreys Basin…but the first day would be a long hike up and over the pass—about six miles or so?    And Duck Lake and beyond out of Mammoth would work—but you’ll see a lot more people there.

On the West side again, you should check out Dinkey Lakes—lots of lake with easy access within 2-5 miles of the trailhead, and you could make some easy loops here.

Finally,  back up above Bass Lake, take Beasore Rode out to Chiquito Trailhead and hike to Chain lakes, or Fernandez Trailhead and hike up the string of lakes to Vandeberg Lake and beyond.

Hope that gives you enough to think about!

This was a fun exercise—and I hope you don’t mind if we post this on our website at some point for people who are looking for a way to go backpacking with limited time or physical resources.

Remember that these trails and destinations, in most cases, will be more crowded than some of the spots you’ve enjoyed in the past, exactly because they are more accessible.  But that still doesn’t keep them from being beautiful.

Thanks, Paul, for some great suggestions. I had gotten the suggestion of Sword Lake from your excellent list as a place to take our young grandchildren-now I’ll definitely consider it for myself and our group of four. We had a trip to Green Lake planned for mid-Sept, 2015 when Sciatica, IT Band pain and other issues popped up, causing all four of us to call for that trip to be postponed-the first trip we’ve ever canceled. We plan to do it this year-glad you mentioned it also.
Yes, your reminder that the trails and destinations we will now consider will be more crowded is accurate and we won’t necessarily have that great feeling of making it to an iconic location but we’ve sometimes passed by some great areas wishing that we could spend more time there as we hurried on to our next destination-now we will be more willing to just stop and enjoy being out there, no matter how far it is from the trailhead. Thank you for spending so much time to come up with these suggestions.

Jane, I plan a fair number of trips and hikes for some of your fellow Inverness residents who are also “in their mid 70s”. Working on a Tuscany / Iceland itinerary right now.

One trick is to utilize the greater horsepower of the younger generations. Their kids can still carry more than their share and the grandchildren also can now.

Another is to look at hiking from hut to hut be it in the Sierra, New Zealand, Italian Alps or in our part of Alaska. A dry place to sleep not only saves the weight of a tent, but let’s you go a little lighter on clothes and sleep gear. Foreign huts also tend to have sleeping pads and stoves. It’s a different kind of trip – less solitude and more social time with other international hikers, but that can be good in its own way. In some places, a meal plan is available, letting you do a spectacular through trip with daypack-like pack weights.

sorry I’ll miss you, Manfred, Ken, etc at GGG. I’ll be over Point Reyes in 95 minutes, but am only in the East Bay for the weekend. Doors closing . . .

+1 on the grouse ridge area. There are so many options and all of them well below 9k.

And there’s 10th Mountain Division Huts in Colorado, though they don’t really work like the Euro hut systems.

The Dinkey Lakes and the Cottonwood Lakes are good “beginner” trips, are easy to get to, and offer side trips. If you can handle doing Kearsarge and get over Glen Pass, the Sixty Lakes Basin is great and away from people. Trips out of Devil’s Postpone going north to thousand Islands Lakes, etc. are easy. Then are are also the Yosemite Camps where you can post up and do day hikes- there are many octo’s who hang out there. The suggestion about Euro refuges is also very good, you will hardly carry anything. Keep going!

I think you’re more interested in destination ideas, but I thought I’d mention using a tennis ball as a “foam roller” for your IT band is amazing for IT band pain and knee pain.

Keep on being awesome.

If you want to base camp the whole time or even off load a lot of weight to get you over one high pass and into the valley of your heart’s desire, one option is a dunnage drop via pack mule.

Packers out of Edison Lake (Vermillion Valley), Emigrant (Highway 120) and elsewhere will pack in your gear (food, cooking system, sleeping gear, shelter) to any pre-arranged spot. (This can also be arranged in reverse at incremental cost). Basically they take anything that will fit into the panniers within given weight guidelines. The charges are based on a per mule per day rate plus extra for any required overnight getting the dunnage in. Another option, which is not backpacking, is to base camp at some of the more remote Forest Service campgrounds and do day hikes. Saddlebag Lakes off of Highway 120 right on the Yosemite border, Highland Lakes off Highway 4, and others come to mind.

Great ideas being posted-thanks! I’m just focusing on California locations now because it’s easier for the four of us to plan the trips. My husband and I have been hiking and going hut-to-hut in Europe for many years and have loved it and will do more. He is a historian with special interests in Germany and Scandinavia so we often go because of his research for books/articles. We’ve also been all over New Zealand. But for my women backpacking friends I’m looking for sites closer to home.

Bruce, we will consider using a packer and a dunnage or drop trip. We could still do all the hiking and not carry our packs-either one way or both. I’ve just been looking at some of the pack stations’ info. Thanks for your suggestion.

I’ve gotten out my stacks of maps and I’ll start poring over them and all the suggestions posted here to find some good trips.

Please keep the suggestions coming as we usually do several trips each year and we’ll definitely use the ideas offered here.

You are getting great suggestions indeed Jane!

I just want to add that you and your friends rock.

Kat, Thank you for your kind words. That means a lot coming from you, such an accomplished outdoorswoman, both in your job and your hiking, backpacking and other outdoor-oriented and nature activities.
I loved reading all about your trip to your special area of Switzerland. We hiked in the Appenzell region in 1969, recommended to us by my husband’s AFS exchange family in Germany. We especially enjoyed the small, mountain alps and my husband talked with farmers about their animals, vegetable gardens and the pull of some of their adult children to go off to cities for jobs. The wildflowers were so impressive I actually bought a few dishes with wildflowers on them so I could remember that special area.
Looking forward to seeing you at GGG.

“And if you feel up to it, you can hike over Piute Pass and spend days exploring Humphreys Basin…but the first day would be a long hike up and over the pass—about six miles or so?”

It’s only 4.5 miles to the pass, but you will be going from 9400′ to ~11,450′. The good news is that there are many places to camp along the way, which means you could amble along at a leisurely pace and stop halfway to camp for the night. Water is readily available nearby, and the surroundings are scenic. This way you should wake up refreshed and ready to continue on over the pass the next day and find a campsite by Upper Golden Trout Lake to use for a base camp. Humphreys Basin is a beautiful area, and the day hiking is both varied and easy. The sunsets can be spectacular if you get the right cloud cover.

If this type of trip appeals to you, Kearsarge Pass offers very similar hiking for the first day. Once over the pass, you have access to not only the 60 Lakes/Rae Lakes area, but also Center Basin a short distance south, and easy 2 .5 mile hike off the JMT. Often overlooked, Center Basin is one of the most beautiful areas I have visited in the Sierra. It would make a very nice 5 day trip at a leisurely hiking pace.

Tom,
Thanks for your suggestions both of which I’ve thought about for some time. Two of us made it to Rae Lakes three years ago but “chickened out” on going over Glen Pass and returned the same way we’d come, back to Woods Creek, then back to Road’s End. I think if we could take our time to get over Kearsarge and acclimate then we could go over Glen to Sixty Lakes Basin/Rae Lakes. I’ve read all your trip reports here so I know you love Center Basin and I would love to do that section, too. You and Andy Duncan have some of the best Trip Reports on BPL based on your wonderful, adventurous itineraries.

My husband and I dayhiked up to Piute Pass and back to North Lake some years ago but I haven’t been back. Everyone says Humphreys Basin is special so I’m going to lobby the other women to try it this year or next, for sure.

Thanks for your help. You have served as a mentor to many here on BPL and have generously offered your knowledge of the Sierra. Wish I could hike off-trail as you do but reading about your trips will have to suffice.

Jane, I want to be just like you when I grow up!

nm