I had never seen a true glacial lake, especially in California, so I planned an entire week’s vacation around this hike. I’d seen countless photos of the milky turquoise glacial waters, but had never seen them myself. So I figured we should visit the area with the largest glacier in the eastern Sierra, the Palisades Glacier. I reserved a campsite at Big Pine Creek campground six months prior, and soon all were sold out. Luckily I got a site literally a stone’s throw from the creek. All the sites in this campground are great, and well spread out. From our site, the sound of the rushing creek was quite relaxing. There are not many sites in this campground, perhaps 25 or so. As it turned out, it was probably one of the best campgrounds I’ve ever stayed in. It is definitely NOT the sardine feeling you get staying in Yosemite Valley, or many other huge campgrounds around the state. As a side note, I highly recommend staying here if you ever plan on car camping in the eastern Sierra. Unfortunately, due to our compressed schedule, we only had the site for one night, so we had to pack up camp early on in the morning of our hike. It was not too bad, taking less than an hour. We still were able to start our hike around 7:30, and we’d need a full day to complete this massive hike. The trail starts out relatively flat, going right along side Big Pine Creek, but soon the switchbacks kick in, and you climb up rather quickly, along side the powerful First Falls (more of a cascade than a true falls). At the top of the first set of switchbacks is a junction, going up the South Fork or North Fork of Big Pine Creek. We were headed up the North Fork, toward the Big Pine Lakes basin. The South Fork takes you to the foot of Middle Palisade, where a semi-technical (Class 3-4) climb can take you to the top of the mountain. After making the junction, the trail flattens out and widens out. It’s actually still part of the named road, Glacier Lodge Road. There is a “high trail” one can take, but we decided to take that route on the return. After just under a mile, the trail takes you tantilizingly close to Second Falls, more of a falls than First Falls, but still more of a cascade. The trail makes a 180 and eventually climbs up to a 4-way junction. Continuing up takes one to points further up and away from the Big Pine Lakes basin. We went left, and continued up toward Second Falls, and eventually the lakes. The trail in this section alternates between exposed rocky sections and meadow-y sections, mostly on granite sand. There are stands of aspens, and lush fields of wildflowers. Also, there are thickets of mosquitoes (at least this time of year), so we had to employ our chemical defenses. We had been mostly alone for the majority of the hike until this point, when a train of pack mules rode up behind us. There were 2 people riding horses, and about 8 mules, carrying tents and big metal boxes and other supplies for people too lazy to backpack in their own gear (I guess…). I thought I saw one of the mules carrying a plasma screen TV, but I could have been wrong……. After what seemed like hours of relentless climbing, finally we could see we were getting close. Temple Crag started to loom over us and the orientation told me we were getting close to the lakes which lie directly below it. We came to the junction to Black Lake, a trail that takes you to the lake, or above it. We decided to head straight for Big Pine Lake #1, and within a quarter mile, it finally showed itself to us. And boy was it a sight to behold! For someone who had never seen one of them in person, I was completely blown away. The color is impossible to describe, and photos do not really do it justice. One has to be in its presence to get a full appreciation of the color. It really is surreal. The color glowed like a turquoise antifreeze, something I could not turn away from. We marveled at the lake for a while, took some photos, and excitedly moved on to the other glacial lakes. There are seven named lakes in the basin, four of which are purely glacial, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th. We ended up visiting these four, plus 4th Lake, Summit Lake, and Black Lake, along with numerous ponds. IMO, 2nd was by far the best, followed by 5th, 1st, then 3rd. 4th is ok, but comparing it to the other lakes puts it back in the distance. Black Lake we saw from on high, and it was nice because of the open vista to the high mountains behind it, along with 1st and 2nd Lake in the distance. We spent a lot of time at 2nd Lake, enjoying our lunch, as well as 5th, taking a prolonged break. After leaving this lake, we hiked up to Summit Lake to filter some water. There is no official trail between Summit Lake and Black Lake, but several cairns mark a use trail connecting the two lakes. It’s not that hard to get lost, just don’t go too far up or down (traverse). Eventually we re-found the trail above Black Lake. From there, switchbacks take you back down to the junction before 1st Lake. Then a 5 mile hike takes you out of the canyon, and back to civilization. An epic day!
Continue Reading Big Pine Lakes Grand Tour
Tags: black, California, Campground, Hike, junction, lake, time, Trail
