We arrived in Mammoth Lakes late Friday night after making the full 9.5 hour drive that day. Driving 168 with some open range areas - there were cows on the road - and then the twisty, windy road down to Big Pine at night was “interesting”. We had a set start time Saturday morning since we had a shuttle reservation at 8:15 am from the Mammoth Lakes Adventure Center (you can drive the road before 7 am, but we didn’t want to take a chance on finding parking, plus we weren’t sure we were up for such an early start). We took the shuttle to Agnew Meadows, walked 0.3 miles to the trailhead, and we were off!

There are several ways to reach Thousand Island Lakes from Agnew Meadows: The JMT (10.6 miles), the PCT High Trail (8.5 miles), and The River Trail (7.8 miles). We would be hiking a portion of the JMT after Thousand Island Lakes and Steve could not get a permit for the High Trail, so the River Trail it was. The River Trail is considered the least scenic of the three routes, but it was nice to have an easier hike in and have some shade throughout the day. And it was still pretty - it just doesn’t have the views you get by walking the ridge on the High Trail.

The River Trail follows the middle fork of the San Joaquin River and the grade is overall gentle (elevation gain under 2000 feet). The Hiking Project website has a good description of the trail, including mileage for the various trail junctions. Even though it was a mild first day, Norah and I felt a little tired (we blamed this on losing our acclimatization after being on the East Coast for three weeks before our trip and our fully laden packs at the beginning of the hike). We were happy when Thousand Island Lake came into view, but we couldn’t quite claim victory yet. There are restrictions on camping at the lake and we skirted the north side of the lake to reach the legal campsites, which added another 0.6 miles or so. Between the beauty of Thousand Island Lake, a location on the immensely popular John Muir and Pacific Crest Trails, pack mules available to carry gear, and it being a weekend, the place was popping. We stayed at Thousand Island Lake three nights and the first night was by far the busiest.

Last year we did not see a single cloud in seven days on our Sierra Nevada backpacking trip, which was disappointing for photos. In contrast, we had a lot of clouds, some rain, and one big thunderstorm on this trip. The clouds in the afternoon looked promising for sunset and I scrambled up the hill behind our campsite to wait. It was too cloudy to light up the sky, but I thought the moodiness of the scene was neat. In the sunset picture you can see the birds eye view I had of the tents below.

The clouds didn’t stick around for sunrise and it was clear above the peaks the next morning. Not so great for sunrise pictures, although the calm morning was nice for a reflection of Banner Peak in the lake. In a few hours Steve would reverse this view and be standing on the summit of Banner Peak looking down on Thousand Island Lake. Before that would happen though we all would climb up to North Glacier Pass and Lake Catherine. Because there is no official trail, it’s hard to know an accurate distance. Our best estimate was that it was around 2.5 miles one way with 1400 feet ascent. It certainly felt longer at times though when picking our way through the boulder field and talus (even more so when we had to do it in a thunderstorm on the way down).

North Glacier Pass, 11,190 feet, sits between Banner Peak and Mount Davis. It is accessed through a broad valley near the end of Thousand Island Lake. There is a trail along the lake and a use trail through the alpine meadow until the boulder field, where it becomes “choose your own adventure”. It’s always tedious making our way through a boulder field, but we eventually reached the Class 2 part with more talus and a steeper grade. This section was short though and it didn’t take too long to reach the pass. Once we crested the pass we still had a short scramble up to the ridge above Lake Catherine, then a short descent down to the lake. What a beautiful spot! Norah and I settled on a perfect sitting rock at the water’s edge while Steve set off to climb Banner Peak (12,945 feet). It took him around an hour to ascend and we knew he made the summit when we heard him whoop. We were going to wait for him, but clouds were rolling in and we thought we should go ahead and start back down the pass and he would catch up with us. We made it about ten minutes before the skies opened up and dumped out rain and hail. We were certainly motivated to make quick work of the descent, although we were very careful with our footing and steps. It was much easier once we were back on the grass/dirt and it wasn’t too long before Steve caught up with us. The rest of the afternoon and evening was off and on rain and unfortunately sunset was a wash. We did get to enjoy seeing Steve’s pictures from Banner Peak - the views from the summit looked amazing!