Yesterday on Earth Day, I posted a photo to Instagram of one of my favorite places, Moose Lake. That reminded me…I’ve had “finish writing Moose Lake backpacking trip review” on my to-do list for a loooong time. It’s been almost 3 years.

So, um….here it is.

In 2016, I hiked the Lakes Trail in Sequoia National Park. I knew there was a bigger and breathtaking lake beyond Pear Lake, but after a mile of tiring uphill cross country hiking, I gave up and hiked back to the car.

In 2018, I finally went the 2 miles past Pear Lake and found Moose Lake. It was an incredible experience, and a magical day. Check out the recap here.

The following year in 2019, I backpacked it. It’s hard to believe that was almost 3 years ago. It’s also hard to believe I started writing this blog post 3 years ago when I got home from that trip. 😂

Since then, I visited my family in Georgia, raced my first half Ironman, got a big promotion to chief meteorologist, entered the Covid era, biked my first century, then biked another, and another, ran a marathon, backpacked from Tioga Pass to Mammoth Lakes, went on countless day hikes, trained for an Ironman that got cancelled 30 minutes before it was supposed to start, got engaged, went to Hawaii for the first time, started learning how to roller skate, and raced my second half Ironman.

A lot has happened, I’ve been busy, and with my shift change at work and added hobbies, I haven’t had Sunday evenings free to write my weekend recap blogs. 😔

I’m hoping to get some going again. I like writing, and I like sharing adventure ideas with everyone to encourage you to get outside.

Back to Moose…

August of 2019, I was on the morning shift. I couldn’t get a backpacking permit in advance, so I was hoping I’d get a walk up permit that became available the day before the hike started.

I left work at noon on a Thursday, then drove 2 hours to the visitor center in Lodgepole, Sequoia National Park. To my surprise, there were permits still available for the Lakes Trail! I couldn’t believe it.

I drove back to Fresno, went to work Friday morning, then got back in the car after work to drive to Sequoia, again. The trailhead is out of Wolverton, and we’d take the Watchtower to Pear Lake.

At 4:15 PM, we departed the Wolverton parking lot to hustle to Pear Lake. I was pretty proud of our 2.5 mph pace with our packs and 2500+ ft of elevation gain. We made our way along the Watchtower, past Heather Lake, between Emerald and Aster lakes, then on to Pear Lake. We reached it before sunset so we had light to scope out an unoccupied spot and set up camp.

Here’s our 6.23 mile hike for day 1:

I never sleep well while camping. I remember not sleeping well, despite being up since 2 AM, having hiked fast with a pack uphill, and going to bed very late for me at the time. 😂 I’m convinced that there is absolutely no way to wear myself out so that I’ll sleep. But the next day was going to be short hike-wise, so it wasn’t a huge deal.

We packed up camp the next morning and started the uphill grind toward Moose Lake.

We haven’t taken the same route twice to or from Moose, and there seemed to be a couple of sets of cairns to make it more confusing. I’d be confident in your navigating skills if you plan on doing this hike.

From the bathrooms at Pear Lake, we headed toward Pear Lake, then left uphill (east) and took the path of least resistance. We went to the right of the peak, which should only be ~.7 miles.

Next, there were a couple of bushy gullies to choose from. I think we’ve taken at least 2 of them, and neither were super pleasant. I’d forgotten until I started going through pictures that there was still snow on the ground.

It flattened out a little, and then we reached a couple of little lakes. I think they were a little drier one of the years. On the way there we went north of them, but you’ll see that on the way back, we stayed south. Our main direction of travel though, was east.

At this point, we were almost to the overlook! We kept walking east up to the final ridge. We always have to take it all in – it’s quite the view looking at Moose Lake and the Great Western Divide.

We continued down to the lake, hopping down the ledges toward the southeast. We walked along the water and found a flat spot at least 100 ft from the lake to set up camp. Here was our 2.69 mile hike from Pear Lake to Moose Lake:

It didn’t take long before we were swarmed by mosquitoes. Crap.

We avoided most of them by taking our floaties out on the water, but the water was much colder than it had been the previous year, so I didn’t stay in long at all. I’m guessing the good snow year was responsible for the late season mosquitoes and colder water.

We hiked around to the far side of the lake to get a different view of the Great Western Divide. We could also see down Buck Canyon, and Buck Creek was supposedly ~2000 ft below.

After that, I spent much of the day in the tent hiding from the blood suckers. That was disappointing. I was hoping for a relaxing day at the lake. Absolutely no one else came to the lake that day, not to backpack and not for a day trip. I was bummed we couldn’t enjoy the solitude more.

I woke up in the middle of the night and attempted to get a few night shots. None of them really came out. I’ve come to terms with that fact that I’ll never be a night photographer.

We hiked out the next morning, and it was almost 9 miles back to the car. If you compare this map to the route we took to get to Moose, you’ll notice our path isn’t quite the same.

Backpacking is great and all, but there’s really nothing better than a post-trip shower to get all the grime, sweat, and bug spray off.

I hope we get back to Moose Lake soon. It’s a hike I’d do again and again as long as I’m able.

Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far. Let’s not go 3 years until the next entry. 😁