My Trip to Second Lake, Inyo National Forest, From Big Pine Creek North Fork Trailhead

7/21/2025 by Alan

Here is a summary of my trip to Second Lake in Inyo National Forest, from Big Pine Creek North Fork Trailhead. It was a wonderful trip with...

Oh So Early...

My day started at 3:00am when my alarm went off. I decided to wake up a half hour earlier than the rest of the group to take a shower and enjoy a cup of coffee and go through my list one final time. I woke John up at 3:30am, and he sat up in bed and said something like “I am fine” and rolled over and laid back down. Anna and Matt did get up sometime around 3:30am and showered as well. It’s always nice to start a trip clean knowing you won’t be showering for the next couple of days. After remembering to bring ‘super-greens’ and vitamins, I was ready to go. At 4:05am I decided John (who was coming down with an illness) should be woken up a bit more aggressively and he got up, not remembering at all my earlier attempt. He quickly got ready, and we were all ready to head out. Here are our packs right before leaving.

Breakfast Before Our Journey

We left our house at 4:40 am and headed north, estimating about a 4 hour, 40 minute drive to the Overnight Parking at Big Pine Trailhead. We made a quick pit-stop at TA Express at 7:50am and got back on the road. We arrived at Big Pine at 9:10 after a 4 hour 30 minute journey, and had a beefy breakfast burrito and some coffee at Brewed Awakening. We leisurely enjoyed our breakfast - It hit the spot!

Away We Go...

We made it to the Trailhead at 10:30 am. John graciously took us to the trailhead and then parked the car 0.6 miles away, and then he ran back. Of course you need to weigh the bags… Alan 39lbs, Matt 36lbs, Anna 36lbs, John 43lbs, unfortunately we didn’t put everything in the car when john left so we had a heavy Yeti Coffee Cup, a paper coffee cup, and the scale – oh well…

We started our journey at 11:00am.

Rushing River - Big Pine Creek North Fork

The trail starts off along the river through pine and birch trees and we hit a nice rushing river before starting the steep climb on the side of the hill out in the hot sun.

Keep Pushing On...

It’s a long stretch with a fairly steep grade before going up the switchback into the valley. We hit the John Muir Wilderness sign at 12:18pm. We are now close to the river with white water rushing down the hill that we now need to climb. John got some of this cool river water.

Lon Chaney Cabin - Snack Break

After a tough climb, at 12:33pm we leave the water and continue the easy trail to the Lon Chaney Cabin which we get to at 12:50am. We take a short break to eat some food and continue to hydrate. John was definitely feeling under-the-weather at this point, but he pushed on… Our break was about 25 minutes long before we put the heavy packs back on and continued on the trail.

First Lake

The trail tops the small pass and at 2:23pm the Crag comes into view. We are hoping to setup our base camp at Second Lake with a grand view of this majestic peak. A few minutes later at 2:29pm we make it to the trail fork for Lake 1-3 or Black Lake. We never made it to Black Lack, so I have something to come back to for the next time. The path gets a little more rocky, having to navigate around small boulders and we continue our ascent. I make a point to “stop for a picture” to get a chance to take a short rest and get a few breaths in… At 2:39 pm we turn a corner on the path and First Lake is in clear view, actually behind us at this point as the trail takes you to the north-east corner of the lake. With First Lake Behind us, Second Lake can’t be that much farther, right?

Second Lake

We arrive at Second Lake at 2:44pm, with the grand view of the Crag and I see the most popular base-camp spot on the lake from many videos on Second Lake. Grey clouds were with us, and we experienced a little bit of rain. Who knew this was a sign of more to come…

Base Camp

With our weary bodies, we still were able to do some diligent searching for the “Perfect Campsite”, which we indeed found around 3:20pm, a mere 4 hours and 20 minutes from the start. I had told John on the drive up that at best we would be no earlier than a 3-hour hike, and probably not much longer than a 5-hour hike. I guess that estimate was pretty accurate! We quickly setup camp and took some time to rest and relax in our new home for the next 36 hours.

Reflections on Day 1

There isn’t much I would have changed on everything we did for day one, except my fitness. I wish I was a little more fit than I currently am. The good news is that this is ‘very easy’ to do. It is a great reminder for me that what I eat and how much I exercise, and lift weights is important, and this should be a priority in my life. These backpacking trips are a nice check for me on how I am doing in this area, and it has motivated me to push forward in this area once again.

Day 2 – We Slept In!

We slept in and got up around 8:00am. John was feeling under the weather, saying he didn’t know if he could hike down the mountain with the way he felt soon after getting up. Little did he know he would be hiking to the glacier a few hours later. Matt did some fishing and John cracked open his science fiction book that an acquaintance wrote. After breakfast we tidied up camp, hung the bear bag, and started our day’s adventure at 10:40am.

Sam Mack Meadow and Palisade Glacier

Our plan for the day was to go up to Sam Mack Meadow and see what we wanted to do from there. John was feeling much better, so on our way to the meadow we decided that he would go solo to Palisade Glacier and be back to Sam Mack Meadow by 3:00pm. If he wasn’t back by 3:30pm, Alan was going to head up the trail and see what happened. Since this is a popular trail – the risk was fairly low that if something happened to John, he wouldn’t be alone, and we could find out about it.

Third Lake

Hiking with only a day pack is quite refreshing going from 40 pounds down to just a few pounds. I was carrying lots of food, the Platypus Water Filter System, a long sleeve shirt and a rain jacket (which ended up being needed) and of course a map and whistle. After about a twenty-minute hike we reached the beautiful Third Lake. I fished for a bit but had no luck, only trying my gold Kastmaster. A couple of people were also fishing across from me and had some strikes but were not able to catch any while I was there for about five minutes. They mentioned using a Panther Martin and something else like that.

We talked to a couple that had tried to summit Mount Sill, but had to come down due to an unexpected thunderstorm the day before. They were from San Jose, and left there two kids and dog at home while they were summiting peaks. The husband was probably around 60 years old, with his wife probably a little younger. They were studs, and it was impressive to see someone around my age living their life to the fullest. As we continued on more peaks came into view and peaceful meadows and streams.

Streams and Flowers

As the trail levels out flowers start to appear. There is quite a diversity of different flowers that thrive in this area with yellows, reds, purples, whites, in various type of plants. July apparently is a great time to go to see this beautiful flowers. At 11:30am we reached this meandering stream that was holding at least fifteen trout of various sizes, maybe eight inches to ten inches in size. I was not able to hook any of them as my Kastmaster was too large for them, so I planned on stopping back here on the way back to try with a small tube jig which has worked very well for me in the past.

Sam Mack Meadow

At the stream, John headed out with a firm safety plan in place, and we started leisurely up the trail. At 12:15 the trail wound up some switchbacks through some large boulders and we can sense that the meadow is just over the hill. From this point entering the meadow I the nearby peaks are Agassiz Col, Mount Winchell, Winchell Col, Thunderbolt Peak, North Palisade, and Polemonium Peak, most of which are in view. Pictures can’t describe how serene and magical the meadow is with the flowing water, soft loam grass, abundant flowers, and majestic peaks around you. I could spend hours there just hanging out and exploring. These images don’t give justice to the beauty of the place. As we were waiting for John’s return, grey clouds were visible, and sure enough it began to rain, then it began to hail. We took cover under the trees waiting for the storm to pass as it did around twenty minutes later.

Peaks in the Vicinity

Agassiz Col, Mount Winchell, Winchell Col, Thunderbolt Peak, North Palisade, and Polemonium Peak

Palisade Glacier

John was able to push through his fatigue from the illness he was fighting, and scramble over difficult rocks to reach the glacier at 1:15pm. There was still some snow around on the trail (July 19, 2025) as we had close to normal snowfall levels this year. The rocks you have to boulder-hop on are technically difficult to navigate, as many of them shift under your feet and it is easy to slip and fall. John slipped a couple of times on his way back down over the rocks. That is a journey I want to do on a future trip here where I have a little more time to see everything. Unfortunately, when john was gazing at the glacier, the grey clouds pounced on him also, with unexpected rain and hail. It ended up that even though the trail was popular, there were only a few groups that we saw coming back from the trail, and some that were still planning to go up late in the day. We talked to a young couple that I dubbed ‘no-shirt-guy’, and they had talked to John and said he was doing fine when they last saw him.

Resting and Exploring

We were at the meadow for about two hours where we had lunch, explored, huddled under trees from the rain and hail, and then rested a bit and took some great pictures as the sun reappeared. We left the meadow at 2:30pm and got back to our base camp at around 4:15pm after leisurely walking back down the trail.

A Few Mistakes

Once we returned I was telling someone that we had a ‘Perfect Trip’, but I corrected myself and said we had a ‘Great Trip’ that included some ‘Adventures’. One Adventure happed that evening as more thunderstorms came in, and as we were cooking our Freeze Dried Chicken and Mashed Potatoes the rain and hail started up once again. So at 6:00pm we were all in our individual tents, eating or simple dinner, seeing flashes of lightning and listening the rumbling thunder. I made the huge mistake of leaving my tent zipper open while we were cooking dinner, so I had puddles of water on my sleeping mat and on my tent floor. I took all my clothes that I wasn’t wearing to soak up the water, and made the best of it. We stayed in our tents for the rest of evening into night as it continued to rain. Anna woke up after a short nap and was gracious enough to secure our bear bags and tidy up camp for the night. She’s the best!

Day 3 - Fishing

After sleeping much of the twelve hours I was in the tent, I got up for the day around 6:00am. First things first, I heated up some water in our Jet Boil and made myself a hot cup of freeze-dried coffee (Starbucks no less). After having to use my shovel once more, I climbed up a rock and enjoyed the majestic view of Temple Crag. I know I keep using the term ‘majestic’ frequently throughout, but that is the best way to describe it looming above our base camp.

Journey Back Home

After we finished up each catching one fish, we were ready to return home. After taking the mandatory picture of the four of us all saddled up with our backpacks ready to go, we headed out at around 9:40am. Hiking mostly downhill is so much easier, and we arrived back at the overnight parking lot at just before noon, for a 2 hour, 20 minute hike from Second Lake to the lot. We talked to some mountaineers for a bit going over their attempt to summit Crag that was also thwarted by thunderstons, we packed up the car. Next stop: Lunch! We decided to have some BBQ so we went to Copper Top BBQ for an ice-cold Hazy Little Thing IPA and some barbeque. After an uneventful drive down the 395, we made it home at 6:30pm. It truly was a Great Trip (who want’s Perfect?).