October 7-8, 2023
With my favorite backpacking season upon us, I was itching to do an overnight somewhere.. anywhere! Originally thought it'd be cool to see the larches and check out Lake Ingalls, but probably so did hundreds of others so we opted out of that one for now. Instead, off to Twin Lakes we went early Saturday morning. The lot was full by the time we arrived at 9 am and we managed to get the last parking spot. Toilet is available at the TH and NW Forest Pass is required. The hike starts at the same trailhead as Gothic Basin where we hiked in 2016. Signage has definitely been updated or added since we were last here. There's no way we would've missed the turnoff to Gothic Basin this time around. But this time we intentionally passed it on the way the Monte Cristo town. We saw a few groups hiking to the abandoned town and no further than that. We had the trail entirely to ourselves the rest of the day, which is crazy considering the warm weather all weekend and the full parking lot.
It's an easy flat 4 miles to the abandoned town. Some folks opt to bike this trail and there's a bike rack located in town. We spent a couple minutes looking at the signboards and continued through to Poodle Dog Pass which was a steep climb of 1500' over 1.9 miles. Fall foliage and nicely constructed boardwalks distracted me from the harsh elevation gain and my ageing knees.
At Poodle Dog Pass we had the option to take a 0.4 mile detour to Silver Lake, but decided to continue on to Twin Lakes. Once again we began to climb, then descended a concerning amount, and then climbed back up again. This dang trail! There was definitely some swearing and a lot of keeping my head down so I didn't see the steep and endless climb ahead. The view above Twin Lakes was indeed spectacular. Route finding was tricky here.
Sadly, route-finding was again tricky down to the lakes. We misinterpreted the map, took a left a little too early and followed some untrustworthy cairns. This lead us to an impassable talus/scree field where Andy slid several feet and luckily was able to save himself from sliding with the river of rocks down the cliff. That was enough for us to turn around. Exhausted, hot, and hungry we had lunch with a view of the lakes while rethinking our overnight plan.
With no spots to pitch a tent, a few hours until sunset, and a couple liters of water remaining, we decided to play it safe and back-track to Silver Lake. There we would be able to filter more water and nab an established campsite. Back home now looking at the map, we know where we missed the drop off prior to turning left. It certainly wasn't obvious when we were out there. Good thing we played it safe and didn't continue on the path we were on. We'll have to revisit this one another time.
At Silver Lake we heard two voices. Finally, people! A couple who just came from Twin Lakes. We chatted a bit and both were surprise at the solitude on this hike.
Silver Lakes was a lovely camping spot. After a long 7 hours of hiking 11 miles, Andy and I took our time and enjoyed the rest of the evening outside sipping cocoa and stargazing.
One of the positives of back-tracking and camping at Silver Lake instead of Twin Lakes is that it made the hike out on Sunday much easier as the bulk of the difficult elevation climb was past us. We had a nice reflective hike back down and quickly set our sights on après beers.
