Trip Report: Backpacking Twin Lakes, Desolation Wilderness — CA
Trip Date: 23–25 July 2020
Trip Details
Permit: Required for overnight stays. Reserve on recreation.gov and search Desolation Wilderness, #32 Twin Lakes. The quota as of Jul 2020 is 20 people per day and can be reserved 6 months in advance. Overnight parking comes with your permit.
Getting There: From Oakland, CA, it was about a 3 hour drive to the Twin Lakes trail head parking lot using 80-E and 50-E. Trailhead via Google Maps
Parking: Very small lot at the trailhead. If full, there’s a bigger lot about one mile back the way you came. If that is full, you can park further down the road on the shoulder where the road becomes wider. If Twin Lakes Trailhead lot is full, we recommend leaving a buddy at the trailhead with everyone’s gear, driving back down to the bigger lot, and walking to the trailhead from the car. The way back is slightly uphill, in case you’re wondering why the walk back seems so much longer! Note: there may be seasonal lot closures so check ahead of time.
Trail Length: 7.1 miles (not including ~3 mile to Grouse Lake and ~3 miles for Mt. Price Scramble)
Elevation Change: 1, 317 ft (not including Grouse Lake and Mt. Price)
Weather: Very warm — low 80Fs at the base and 70Fs at Twin Lakes during the day. At night, light winds around mid 40s-50Fs.
Other Things to Note: medium mosquito/bugs situation mostly near the base. We brought bug nets but ended up being fine with just Deet. We saw chipmunks, marmots, and very large ants.
Day 1: Thursday, July 24, 2020
From the parking lot, after maximizing our Deet coverage, we went through the gate and walked to the sign marking the start of the trail. There was a three-pronged fork, the further left going to Wright’s Lake, the middle that goes over a bridge, and a fork going towards the right. We took the right-most trail and began our journey.
About 1.5 miles in, we came across a fork: left to Twin Lakes and right upwards to Grouse Lake. We decided to go on a side trip to Grouse Lake for lunch. It was an unexpectedly steepish climb over granite, and further than we thought. After some huffing and puffing, possibly some expletives, we made it to the lake.
Lucky for us, it was worth it! We were three of maybe five people total surrounding the lake. After taking off our sweaty packs, we had a quiet, relaxing lunch next to the water. Em packed us salmon onigiri, cucumber rolls, and potato croquettes to enjoy.
Much to our chagrin, after our carb-filled lunch, we had to set back off towards Twin Lakes. After donning our now cold, wet packs, we descended back down to the fork.
The trail to Twin Lakes was clearly marked by cairns and meticulously laid rock paths. Thank you, kind trail ambassadors and volunteers! We passed by a waterfall (or two) on the way there, but we were on a mission and there was no stopping us from reaching Twin Lakes! Aka, we were really tired and just wanted to get to camp.
Once we arrived, we were welcomed by the sight of multiple granite peaks surrounding a sparkling still alpine lake. We set up camp a bit further back from the water than the others who were already settled (remember to camp 100 feet away from water here!) and scampered over to the water all giddy-like to relax for the rest of the day. There was plenty of space for everyone and when we arrived, people were enjoying the lake via inflatable raft. Genius.
Waiting for sunset was a S-T-R-U-G-G-L-E. Mind you, we all woke up around 5AM that morning. As the moon dipped into the horizon, we squinted our eyes across the night sky in search of the comet NEOWISE. What’s that blurry smear, you ask? Why, that’s it! We were able to see NEOWISE with the naked eye! We had to keep looking away and looking back to refocus because our inferior human eyes would blur it out of existence. Sixty-two hundred years until the next sighting, and we were able to see it in our lifetime. What an experience. Day one, fin.
Day 2: Friday, July 25, 2020
We all woke up with the rising of the sun. This was out of our control of course, as the light coming through our tents got SO bright our eyelids could no longer stay closed. Early morning start it is, then.
We set off after our hearty Mountain House Southwest Hash breakfast towards Mt. Price. This took us over Boomerang Lake, past Island Lake, dips, hills, and granite slabs big and small. All very fun and challenging!
There was no trail past Island Lake, so we took to exploring and quite literally finding our own path. Due to the variations in granite and rock and dips in the “trail”, we couldn’t really tell where to go next until we arrived at each pre-determined location. We just walked in the general direction of Mt. Price and hoped for the best.
We didn’t quite make it to the peak and instead settled on a large slab of rock to eat lunch and chat. We didn’t see a soul the whole time during our scramble, and we suspect that we missed all of the day hikers when we arrived back to the lake in the late afternoon. Perfect timing!
For the rest of the day, we lazed around the lake and took naps until the sun started to dip. Em looked around for a better ‘natural toilet’ (there were more people camping at this point and our designated rock was now exposed), and found the perfect place to watch the sunset. We watched our last sunset of the trip; a pleasant color way of pink, purple, and blue hues with the light of the crescent moon peaking through fluffy clouds.
Day 3: Saturday, July 26, 2020
We set back towards the trailhead in the morning and passed a lot more day hikers than the previous two days. Saturday was BANGIN! We’re glad we decided on backpacking Thursday-Saturday. As we drove back home, the line of cars to get into the area was hefty and we were one of few cars driving the opposite direction.
Overall, a successful backpacking trip!
See you out on the trail! <3 Carne, Em, Sus
Pack List
Post Trip Notes
We decided to make a few changes to our gear in light of COVID. One of them was to bring our own individual tents. Susie jumped right on it and purchased one in time for our trip, the BA Copper Spur HV UL1. Apparently one person tents are all the rage now, probably due to COVID, and many of them are sold out. Caren was able to score one as well, though it did not make it in time. She opted to rent a lighter two person tent. Emily was too cheap to do either and opted to lug the five pound 2 person REI Half Dome 2+ up to the lake. A decision she would regret.
In any case, we decided that we enjoyed having our own space! No need to consider others when sprawling out and organizing our gear. No more moving as little and as slowly as possible at night into a more comfortable position to reduce noise! Huzzah!
Another change we made was not passing around our food to share during meals. Instead, we brought two light metal bowls so that each person would have their own eating receptacle. This worked out nicely, as we didn’t have to feel rushed grabbing our respective spoonfuls of food and shoving it in our mouths as quickly as possible so the next person could have their fill.
