Days 5 & 6:

On Day 5 our objective was Minaret Lake. There are two ways to get there: a 13 mile hike on trails or a more direct route under the Minarets via Iceberg and Cecile Lakes. It’s hard to estimate the distance of the direct route since past Iceberg Lake there is no official trail - my best guess from Ediza to our campsite at Minaret was 3.25 miles. Thirteen miles vs three miles - no brainer right? Except the short way was steep and partly off trail with some scree and boulder sections (the climb up to Cecile from Iceberg in particular was a pain). Even though we were a little gun shy after the tedious off trail Pants Pass last year, we still opted for the direct, off trail route. And it was more than worth it - this was our best day - the lakes and views were stunning!

We started off the day with another beautiful sunrise at Ediza Lake and retraced our steps around the lake to catch the trail up to Iceberg Lake. This is a maintained trail and only a mile with 500 feet elevation gain. The views back to Ediza and the mountains were pretty and we loved walking through the open alpine meadow to Iceberg Lake. We took a break to soak in the views and assess the route from there. We would walk along the eastern side of the lake to the southern end where we had a final, steep, gnarly climb up to Cecile Lake (roughly 0.75 miles and 500 feet elevation gain). I was glad we were going one way because I think the descent would have been really annoying. But wow, the views when we crested the ridge. Cecile Lake and the Minarets were stunning. We picked our way across the boulder field and found a spot for a break. I think we would’ve spent all afternoon here if it wasn’t for the clouds rolling in and the storms we could see to the south. We decided we would like to be down to Minaret Lake before any afternoon storms and reluctantly pulled ourselves away.

The descent to Minaret Lake was straight forward (about 1.5 miles to our campsite on the other side of the lake and 500 feet elevation loss) and we were down to the lake quickly. It’s a large lake with multiple camping options. We decided to hike around the lake, crossed the outlet and found a sheltered spot just beyond there. We were happy to have camp set up by the time the storms rolled in - it was a big thunderstorm right over us (apparently the news reported a significant thunderstorm because multiple people asked us about it on our hike out the next day). The storms meant sunset was a bust again, but our campsite turned out to be in a perfect location for sunrise. And what a sunrise it was. One of my favorite photos from the trip (and quite possibly my favorite) was the reflection of the Minarets at sunrise. It was a perfect way to start our last day on the trail.

We originally had planned for more days in the backcountry, but ended up shortening it by a few days (i.e. taking the short way from Ediza to Minaret cut off a day since we would not need an extra night at either Ediza or Minaret to day hike to Iceberg and Cecile Lakes). So Day 6 would be our last one. It was an uneventful hike down to the Devil’s Postpile (around seven miles). Most of the hike we were on the Minaret Creek Trail until we joined up with the JMT again. We had a few options to where to exit and we opted to hike to Devil’s Postpile to see the national monument. It was a neat geological feature (columnar basalt), although we felt it was a little anticlimactic. After taking a look we walked to the shuttle stop and were on our way back to the adventure center. We had good views of the Minarets from the road and it was neat to see the general area we camped the night before. And we were more than happy to stop at the Mammoth Brewing Company for a tasty post-hike meal. We found a room in Bishop for the night and made plans for our “bonus day”. It was a successful, terrific Sierra Nevada backpack in 2021!