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Sherwin Lakes - 1 member in 6 triplogs has rated this an average 5 ( 1 to 5 best )
6 triplogs
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Apr 02 2016
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 Guides 77
 Routes 106
 Photos 2,987
 Triplogs 57

63 male
 Joined Jan 27 2007
 Thousand Oaks, C
Sherwin LakesSierra Nevada, CA
Sherwin Lakes
Sierra Nevada, CA
Snowshoeing avatar Apr 02 2016
slegal • Triplogs 57
Snowshoeing5.60 Miles 836 AEG
Snowshoeing5.60 Miles
836 ft AEG
 
Linked   none no linked trail guides
Partners none no partners
I knew this might be a tough snowshoe, but I underestimated how tough. I had hoped that the trail could be followed. Once half way up the manzanita forest, there was no trail to follow. The north slope was holding more than 4 feet of snow.

Once I lost the trail, I looked to see where others went. The primary pathway was too low. So I abandoned looking for a path to follow and chose a more direct route. I just headed straight uphill on snowshoes. Also, since the direction that the trail goes (east) is on a steep slope, I headed in a southwesterly direction instead. It was nowhere near as steep. I knew that eventually I would hit a steep slope, but not a very high slope.

It was a tough climb, but it was much easier than it would have been had I tried the more normal route. Once on top of the ridge, I found myself on very thin snow with none on the south slope that I needed to head down. No trail and lots of boulders made route finding a challenge. I finally made it down to the flats below where there was thin snow cover. Back on with the snowshoes for a little while until the snow cover became so thin that it wasn’t worth wearing the snowshoes. The lake level is the lowest I’ve ever seen at lake 3. I know it will get a boost when more snow melts.

This was by far the most snow that I’ve snowshoed through and the reward was stunning mountain views. I really enjoyed the scenery.

The trip down was much quicker than the trip up. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to snowshoe down a 20 degree slushy slope without falling. Once I reached a more reasonable slope the rest of the trip down was quick. Because I didn’t do the switchbacks, this hike was nearly two miles shorter than normal. However, it took nearly twice as long as normal.
 Named place
 Named place [ checklist ]
[ checklist ]  Mammoth Mountain  Sherwin Lakes
_____________________
  1 archive
Jan 25 2015
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 Guides 77
 Routes 106
 Photos 2,987
 Triplogs 57

63 male
 Joined Jan 27 2007
 Thousand Oaks, C
Sherwin LakesSierra Nevada, CA
Sherwin Lakes
Sierra Nevada, CA
Hiking avatar Jan 25 2015
slegal • Triplogs 57
Hiking5.60 Miles 836 AEG
Hiking5.60 Miles
836 ft AEG
 
Linked   none no linked trail guides
Partners none no partners
Living the life.

Today I skied all morning and hiked the rest of the day. For me that’s living the life. When I was younger I used to go running after skiing. But as I got older, I pretty much just skied of hiked, but never both in the same day.

Today I wanted to do both. I wanted to ski with my wife and daughter. The snow was surprisingly god, albeit thin yesterday, so I figured we would have fun. As it turned out, we did have fun up until noon, when the snow took on the consistency of a Slurpie. So off the mountain we went.

An hour later I was on the Sherwin Lakes Trail. I brought my hiking poles again because wet ice and show is the worst kind and I anticipated some. The trail was a little worse than I expected, but I managed through it pretty well.

I reached Sherwin Lakes quickly and had the place to myself. I saw lots of people coming down while I was heading up, but no one once I got there. Last January I walked on the frozen lake. Today the ice looked very thin and there were lots of puddles on the ice. Anyone that would walk on the ice today is a fool.

I was much slower descending than ascending the trail. The trail was so slippery on the way down that I took my sweet time. Eventually I made it back to the trailhead. When I got into my 4Runner the thermometer said the temperature was 57 degrees outside. Small wonder why all of the snow is melting in Mammoth lakes today.
_____________________
 
Jan 02 2014
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 Guides 77
 Routes 106
 Photos 2,987
 Triplogs 57

63 male
 Joined Jan 27 2007
 Thousand Oaks, C
Sherwin LakesSierra Nevada, CA
Sherwin Lakes
Sierra Nevada, CA
Hiking avatar Jan 02 2014
slegal • Triplogs 57
Hiking5.60 Miles 836 AEG
Hiking5.60 Miles
836 ft AEG
 
Linked   none no linked trail guides
Partners none no partners
Skiing on Mammoth was pretty sub-par due to the lingering drought. I brought my hiking boots to compensate for the lack of snow. This was my second hike of the trip and there was a lot more snow on this hike than my hike earlier in the week on The Reverse Peak Trail in June Lake.

Compared to my last winter hike on this trail, the trail was a lot more slippery this time around. There was definitely more snow this time. I slipped and fell twice on the way down.

I really enjoyed the hike. The temperature was in the low 50s which is pretty balmy in Mammoth this time of year.

The lake ice was solid, but I kept hearing these low pitched thumping noises from under the ice, which was a little unnerving while standing on the ice. I sat on a boulder next to the ice and ate a granola bar and the thumping noise came from under the ice in many directions about every 10-15 seconds.

On the northeast side of the lake there was a structure made of large vertical standing logs. It was interesting and had to be a lot of work to make since many of the logs were too heavy for me to move. If we get a little relief from the drought this winter, the structure will be under water by spring.
 Flora
 Flora [ checklist ]
[ checklist ]  Jeffrey Pine
 Fauna
 Fauna [ checklist ]
[ checklist ]  Hairy Woodpecker
 Named place
 Named place [ checklist ]
[ checklist ]  Mammoth Mountain
_____________________
 
Dec 26 2011
avatar

 Guides 77
 Routes 106
 Photos 2,987
 Triplogs 57

63 male
 Joined Jan 27 2007
 Thousand Oaks, C
Sherwin LakesSierra Nevada, CA
Sherwin Lakes
Sierra Nevada, CA
Hiking avatar Dec 26 2011
slegal • Triplogs 57
Hiking5.60 Miles 836 AEG
Hiking5.60 Miles
836 ft AEG
 
Linked   none no linked trail guides
Partners none no partners
We're up in Mammoth Lakes to go skiing. One problem. Not much snow. Fortunately I planned ahead. Hiking boots, a pack and I'm ready to go. I had never been to the Sherwin Lakes during the winter months because there is usually too much snow. There are a few exposed areas along the trail where I would really be worried about avalanches. Fortunately, with only about two inches of month old snow, I felt pretty safe from an avalanche standpoint.

I went to see frozen lakes and that's what I got. My wife and son went skiing anyway and my daughter stayed at our condo and read all day. While on my hike my wife texted me that I was missing out. My response was simple, "No I'm not."

The lakes were beautiful. The stream between Upper Sherwin Lake and Big Sherwin Lake was full and clear and relatively ice free. I was surprised by this.

Right now is a great time to hike the Sierra. All roads are open, including the major passes. You get to see the Sierra like few do, in the dead of winter, with nowhere near the effort or risk that it takes to get to these spots in the middle of a normal Sierra winter.
 Named place
 Named place [ checklist ]
[ checklist ]  Mammoth Mountain
_____________________
 
Jul 22 2011
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 Guides 10
 Triplogs 432

63 male
 Joined Feb 25 2002
 Scottsdale
Sherwin LakesSierra Nevada, CA
Sherwin Lakes
Sierra Nevada, CA
Hiking avatar Jul 22 2011
Tim • Triplogs 432
Hiking10.90 Miles 1,900 AEG
Hiking10.90 Miles   4 Hrs   40 Mns   2.34 mph
1,900 ft AEG
 no routesno photosets
1st trip
Linked   none no linked trail guides
Partners none no partners
This was Carolyn and my Day #2 hike while visiting the Mammoth Lakes area. We started off from the Sherwin Lakes Trailhead at 9:25 in the morning with the temperatures in the mid 60's. The California South Sierra hiking book had the round trip distance up to Valenitine Lake at 12 miles. At the end of the day, our GPS unit had it at 10.9 miles and the printed topo triplog had it at 9.0 miles so quite the disparity. It took us an hour to climb the 800 feet of switchbacks to Sherwin Lakes. It then took us another hour and 40 minutes to climb the 1,100 feet from Sherwin to Valentine Lakes. We encountered some snow pack just before the outlet to Valentine Lake but other than that it was clear the entire way. It was very difficult to get around Valentine Lake so the fishing opportunities were limited to the shallow end around the outlet. We say lots of trout, but couldn't entice them to bite. WE had lunch by the lake's edge before returning.

It took us an hour and 10 minutes to get back down to Sherwin Lakes where we took a break to fill up on water, wet our feet, and read a little. From Sherwin Lakes back to the car was just 50 minutes. All told, we had the hike at 10.9 miles in 4 hours and 40 minutes with 1,900 feet of AEG. We encountered a few people but had pretty much the place to ourselves.
_____________________
 
Aug 03 2008
avatar

 Guides 77
 Routes 106
 Photos 2,987
 Triplogs 57

63 male
 Joined Jan 27 2007
 Thousand Oaks, C
Sherwin LakesSierra Nevada, CA
Sherwin Lakes
Sierra Nevada, CA
Hiking avatar Aug 03 2008
slegal • Triplogs 57
Hiking5.60 Miles 836 AEG
Hiking5.60 Miles
836 ft AEG
 
Linked   none no linked trail guides
Partners none no partners
My son and I were in Mammoth for a father-son weekend together. We hiked to Pyramid Peak on day 1. We didn't make it all the way. On day 2 we set out for the Sherwin Lakes. As we neared the lakes we both smelled smoke. We didn't see any smoke though. Since lots of backpackers camp at the lakes I assumed it was a campfire, which is not legal, but I wasn't worried.

After spending much time exploring the lakes we decided to make this a long hike to Valentine Lake. As we neared the John Muir Wilderness boundary, I looked behind me at my son and my heart sank. Behind my son was a plume of smoke in the direction we had to go to get off of the mountain. There is an alternate route, but that would add a lot of mileage to the hike.

We headed back in the direction of the smoke. In hindsight it was probably a bad move, but we made it through. We didn't see any flames, but this was clearly more than a campfire somewhere off in the direction of lakes 1 or 2, where the trail doesn't go. It was very smoky all around.

As we descended off of the mountain we passed a number of forest service firefighters heading up. We were even questioned by an investigator at the bottom, who was speaking with every person that passed by. I assume it was campers that started the fire and I suspect that the campers were long gone and didn't even know that they started a forest fire.

We headed back to our condo to clean up and pack up. A couple hours later as we were leaving town we looked up and saw that the lakes area was fully engulfed in flames. It took a week to put the fire out. I later learned that both routes out were blocked by the fire. Had we not gotten out of there when we did, a helicopter would have had to rescue us as was the case with a number of people trapped at Valentine Lake. I'm glad I turned around and saw the smoke. It's the reason we turned around instead of proceeding onto Valentine Lake.
 Flora
 Flora [ checklist ]
[ checklist ]  Woodland Pinedrops
_____________________
 
average hiking speed 2.34 mph

WARNING! Hiking and outdoor related sports can be dangerous. Be responsible and prepare for the trip. Study the area you are entering and plan accordingly. Dress for the current and unexpected weather changes. Take plenty of water. Never go alone. Make an itinerary with your plan(s), route(s), destination(s) and expected return time. Give your itinerary to trusted family and/or friends.

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