Route Planning
Any good backpacking trip should begin with a route plan. This gives everyone a good idea of the distance they'll hike each day, plus you'll need to leave your plan with the park rangers so they know where to look for you if you don't come back at your scheduled time. 😀Our plan was to spend two nights at Twin Lakes before hiking further into the wilderness to see the sights. After Twin Lakes, we hike about 3 miles to cross Silliman Pass and down into the next valley over from Twin Lakes. We would then stay two days visiting Ranger and Beville Lakes since they are only a half-mile apart. We had originally planned to hike back to Twin Lakes and stay one more night, but we decided to hike back to Lodgepole a day early on the last night at Ranger Lake. We woke up in the morning, broke camp, and hiked the entire 10 miles from Ranger Lake to Lodgepole.
Pro Tip: When you park your car before leaving for a wilderness trip, back into the parking space.
When we returned to the rental car after 4 days, the battery was dead.
The car had been parked head-in and jumper cables could not reach the
battery from the rear of the car. The gear shift was non-functional
without the on-board computer having power, so we had to wait a while
until a tow truck with extra long jumper cables arrived.
A bit of research about the Twin Lakes trail can give you some background on the difficulty and what to expect. The trail head is located in the Lodgepole campground and is therefore an ideal starting point. Lodgepole has a large parking lot where you can leave your car while you're out hiking. Camping the first night in Lodgepole is a perfect way to acclimate to the altitude, but spaces are limited and need to be booked well in advance.
Planning Tools
When I first visited Twin Lakes as a Boy Scout, the route planning tools were limited to a topographic map and a compass. Today the tools are significantly more sophisticated which makes it much easier to plan a wilderness trip.Google Earth Pro is a free mapping and satellite imaging tool that is great for scouting locations. Google Earth allows you to see your destination both as a topographic map and with images taken from above overlaying the map features. This makes it easier to identify navigational landmarks that are helpful when hiking in the wilderness. It is also nice to see other close-by points of interest that you can incorporate into your trip.
Taking a map of your planned route with you on the trip would be ideal. The Google mapping tools aren't extremely effective unless you have an Internet connection - something that is universally unavailable in the wilderness. Fortunately there are several hand-held GPS devices that can be used during planning as well as when navigating through the wilderness.
While there are several options for portable mapping (including some GPS type applications for your smart phone), I chose to use the Garmin eTrex 20x hand-held GPS with the Garmin TOPO 100k map package. It runs on AA batteries, and I only changed the batteries once during the entire trip after heavily using it for 3 days. The free Garmin Basecamp software uses the device's map and provides measuring and route planning tools. I was able to identify the trails and points of interest we would visit and export these to the device. At each trail-head, I simply click the route I've saved on the device with Basecamp and follow the trail.
Route Maps
The maps and graphs in this section were generated from Garmin Basecamp. I carried the routes and way-points in my eTrex 20x; the GPS was not only helpful in tracking our progress but it also helped us find the trail again in places where the trail was not marked very well.The trail from Lodgepole to Twin Lakes is fairly well maintained so it is difficult to unintentionally stray off the trail. (It was only beyond Twin Lakes that the trail became slightly more difficult to track.) The trip to Twin Lakes is roughly 7 miles; we chose to hike straight through to Twin Lakes the first day. If 7 miles is too much for you, there is at least one campground roughly mid-way to Twin Lakes. We did not encounter anyone camping along the trail as most people were opting to hike straight to Twin Lakes.
The picture below shows the trail from Lodgepole to Twin Lakes, and you can download the KML file for use in mapping software here: Lodgepole to Twin Lakes.kml
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| Track to Twin Lakes from Lodgepole |
The saying "No pain, no gain," definitely applies to the Twin Lakes trail. The image below shows the elevation plot of the trail from Lodgepole to Twin Lakes. The total elevation change across the 7 miles is nearly 3000 feet. The bottom of the dip near the 4 mile mark is a stream crossing where it is a good idea to rest and replenish water; the remainder of the hike after this point is brutal.
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| Elevation Plot of the Twin Lakes Trail |
The image below shows the next leg of our trip from Twin Lakes. It was roughly 3 miles from Twin Lakes to Ranger Lake. You can download the KML file for this leg here: Twin Lakes to Ranger Lake.kml
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| Track to Ranger/Beville Lake from Twin Lakes |
The journey from Twin Lakes over the Silliman Pass is roughly a 700 foot elevation change. It was a challenge as the air became thinner with the increase in elevation.
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| Elevation Plot of the Twin Lakes to Ranger/Beville Lakes Trail |
The high views of Twin Lakes from the trail were spectacular. At one point we even heard some wolves howling in the mountains overlooking Twin Lakes.
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| Overlooking Twin Lakes on the trail to Silliman Pass |
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| Overlooking the valley of the Twin Lakes |
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| One of the Twin Peaks in the distance on the trail between Twin Lakes and Silliman Pass |
We were rewarded with magnificent views at the top of the Silliman Pass (elevation: 10, 160 feet). We stopped for a rest and had a few Clif Bars for lunch.
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| Taking a break at the top of the Silliman Pass |
The views on the downward side of the trail from the top of the Silliman Pass were also spectacular.
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| View from the trail between Silliman Pass and Ranger Lake |
The trail brings you to an overlook above Ranger Lake.
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| Overlooking Ranger Lake, Sequoia |
Part 3 of this series covers scheduling and reservations.
