Going it solo for the first time in years ｜ Backpacking Big Pine Lakes Eastern Sierra ｜ California

It was an exciting day. Not only was I headed out backpacking, but this was my first solo backpacking trip in almost three years. Welcome back to the Eastern Sierra everyone. Today I will be hiking to the Big Pine Lakes. I will be camping at Second Lake. It's a very popular trail. Very beautiful trail and I'm excited to be here. I've only backpacked this trail once and that was back in 2019. I did a solo backpacking trip and this is going to be my first solo backpacking trip in several years. I'm getting an early start today because it's been really hot. It's been getting to the upper 90s to about 100 degrees in the valley, Owens Valley, and it's probably still going to be quite warm up here. I am starting at about 8 30 a.m and it was about 65 degrees when I hit the trail. I did not start from this trailhead the last time I did this trip. This is the upper trailhead. I started with one that was a little bit lower. The hike today would be a climb from 7,801 feet in elevation to 10,138 feet. A gain of 2,337 feet in just under five miles. I remember why I didn't start from this trailhead the last time and that's because it's a steeper climb right off the bat. The other trailhead is a more gradual climb. However, it's more exposed from the get-go and this one starts in the trees. So a few pros and cons with both of those. The permit for this trip is incredibly sought after and hard to come by. I checked two weeks ago and there happened to be one permit available on this day. So it was going to be a solo trip no matter what and I jumped on it. I just realized I made an error. I came from this trail and last time I came from this trail this says day use parking and this says overnight parking. So that's why I started at that trailhead last time. However, I am not going back to the car now. So I apologize for taking a spot in the day use parking for anybody that needed it. This is where all trails took me to. Darn it. No wonder the day hikers were looking at me funny. My sincerest apologies. I hope that I don't get a ticket or anything but I'm sure that you would all understand that I won't don't want to go back with the big heavy backpack and start all over again. The day is going to get hotter. It's already getting warm. It is definitely feeling hot out here. When I stop to take a break I'll probably braid my hair and get it off my neck. I'm sweating quite a bit but it is so beautiful. It feels so good to be back in my beloved Sierra. I can smell the pines. The water is flowing. The skies are blue. It's gorgeous. I'm officially in the John Deere wilderness. I'm in the forest now and it feels amazing. Lots of shade. Cool breeze. Birds are singing. I'm coming up here on Lon Chaney's cabin. He was a silent film star and had this cabin built up here right on the river or right on the creek. It's a pretty epic location. Built in 1929 to 1930 from granite fieldstone, it's a historic granite structure built by architect Paul R Williams as a retreat for the silent film star. I think I'm going to take a little break here and have a snack before continuing on. This trail is a pretty steady climb all the way up. It leveled out for a little bit here. I think I'm about to start climbing again but the good news is when I hike out it's going to be all downhill. I'm just motoring up the mountain taking a lot of shade breaks like I'm doing now. Just stop for a couple seconds catch my breath and cool off and continue on. I'm a little bit out of shape. I haven't backpacked in a couple months and obviously I'm at high elevation and it's hot so I've got all of those things combining but we're getting up there. So getting our first glimpses of Temple Crag. Getting pretty close however I need a shot of some electrolytes because I'm running out of gas. So do that real quick and then get back on the trail. Here is First Lake. We're getting really close. My first view of Second Lake. Awesome. Absolutely gorgeous. I think I found my home for tonight. It's in the trees but the lake is right there. I can just walk out a few feet and see Temple Crag. See the whole lake and I do have some trees here for some privacy and some shade and somewhere to hang my earth sack. There's a couple sites where I would be fully exposed to the sun. A little bit more clear view of everything all the time. However I feel like it's hot and I will not have any privacy there. One of the ones right here there's a tent just below it so I would hear them. They would hear me and I think this is a happy medium. Let me show you the awesome views from here. Okay this is just steps away from that last shot I showed you. How gorgeous is that? This view is also just steps away in the other direction and there's the site I was talking about down there. However there's another tent right here right in front. Gorgeous. By the way there are some mosquitoes here. I've been bitten once and I see some flying around. I just put on some bug spray for the first time so we'll see how bad they get. Usually they're the worst at dusk and at dawn so hopefully they won't get too crazy. I've got my little home set up and now I've got to go on the search for some water. I got some intel from my backpacking neighbor. He said that the wind got super brutal last night after the sun went down and he also said that it gets very cold that it was freezing and he woke up with frost all over everything this morning and then he also said the mosquitoes are relentless. I've already experienced some. Some have been in my tent already but he said dusk to dusk and dawn like I predicted are really really bad. So I've got myself sprayed with a little bit of DEET and hopefully that's going to do the trick. So I'm going to be walking down this little trail to the lake. There's a beach down there and that is where I'm going to get my water. Well that was quite the haul to get water. I just got enough for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow, coffee and oatmeal and then when I'm headed back down the trail there's plenty of water sources, moving water, so I won't have to utilize lake water. What a gorgeous day. It's hard to believe it's going to get super cold tonight. I'm anxious to see how cold it actually gets. Right now I'm just going to chill out, enjoy this beautiful absolutely stunning place and just chill out before dinner. So I drank some Element electrolytes on my way up. I have a little bit of a headache and I have a little bit of muscle cramping which isn't that surprising. I'm at a high elevation. I was sweating. All the salt was being released from my body on the hike. My favorite new flavor is the lemonade iced tea. It has a little bit of caffeine in it so I'm not going to drink that one right now just because I want to be able to sleep tonight. So I'm going to go with the pink lemonade. Element is packed with things that are good for you like 1,000 milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium and 60 milligrams of magnesium and it doesn't have any of the things that aren't good for you like sugar. I was feeling really out of gas earlier and almost immediately after I drank some Element in my water I was feeling so much better. I had a pep in my step again. Element is used by everyone, NBA players, athletes and even moms and dads. Even out gardening you could break out a sweat and lose a lot of sodium and it's really important that you replace that sodium otherwise you end up with fatigue, headaches and muscle cramps just like I had. If you would like to try Element for yourself which I highly recommend, right now they are offering my viewers a free 8-pack sampler of their most popular flavors for free with any order. Get yours at www.drinkelemente.com and the deal is only available through my link. Thank you once again to Element for sponsoring this video. Me and a little chipmunk have been going at it down there. It has been trying to get into my ursac. It can't but I've been trying to him off and shoo him off and he doesn't give up. I'm gonna go ahead and start getting my dinner going. It is actually almost five o'clock and I'm kind of a creature of habit. I usually eat my dinner at five o'clock so that's what I'm gonna do here too and I'm hungry. I'm gonna be having this peak refuel chicken penne pasta which was given to me by my friend Mike Wanders in Yellowstone. If you haven't checked out Mike Wanders channel, check it out. It's just called Mike Wanders. He does a lot of cool backpacking stuff and also a lot of cool Sasquatch stuff, Bigfoot stuff. So check it out and thank you Mike. This is my favorite backpacking meal and it's become harder to find lately actually. I gotta find my spork. It's in here somewhere. I know it is. I think I do. Where are you spork? I don't know why it's always so hard to find. Does that ever happen to you? Here it is. These don't need very much water and they're high in calories which is one of the reasons I like them so much and they rehydrate pretty fast. 10 minutes. I feel like it's looking pretty good. I think it is ready to eat. M&M's. It's what's for dessert. I'm telling you this guy's relentless. He'll not give up. You are cute. I'm not gonna feed you. Yep, you heard me right. I feel so relaxed right now. I'm super cozy in my tent. The sun's going on behind the mountain and it's gonna get dark here pretty soon. The mosquitoes were not bad while I was having dinner thankfully. The only pest I had was that little chipmunk. He just did not want to give up. He was going under my feet and he was just doing whatever he could to get to my food. Obviously people feed I can tell. Don't feed wildlife folks. As I mentioned earlier, this is my first solo backpacking trip in I think about three years. I'll have to look. I'll put the number up here on the screen. I just at some point felt like I would rather have company and that's what I've been doing since my last solo backpacking trip. However, I think this has been really good for me. I was a little apprehensive. Not apprehensive but if I'm being transparent I was a little bit nervous but I was also very excited and ready to do this and so I feel like it's been really good for me. Let's just make sure I make it through the night without any incidents and I'll feel like it's been pretty successful. I'm gonna go ahead and call it a night here and I will check in with you all in the morning. Good night. I woke up to the incredible alpenglow that the Sierra is known for. That range of light. Good morning. It is a stunning morning here. Oh my gosh. The alpenglow was just going off. Mother Nature is pretty amazing. It was really quiet here last night and no wind which is good. The mosquitoes are already out this morning which is not good so I think I'm gonna actually have my coffee from the comfort of my tent but wow it is so beautiful here. I mean I really see why this is such a popular trail. So as I mentioned I had been searching for the permit and I found one on this day. The unfortunate thing about that though is it butted up against some other plans that I had so I can only stay out here the one night and I probably have to pack up fairly early here to hike out but man it was so worth it and these are so hard to come by. I was searching you know ahead in the future. I'm only going to be in this area for you know a limited amount of time and for the foreseeable future there was nothing available. I'm all packed up but I wanted to get one more look at gorgeous Second Lake before I leave. One thing I can tell you is it is going to be a warmer day than yesterday. It's hot already. I definitely don't need a jacket and it was not breezy last night either. I was quite warm. I had to keep my sleeping bag unzipped and I didn't wear a beanie or anything so yeah it's it's going to be a hot one. I'm about a mile from the trailhead so I think I'm going to go ahead and wrap up this video here. I'll check back with you if the truck has any issues and once again I apologize for parking in the day use area to the Forest Service and the day hikers. Rookie mistake there. Anyhow thank you so much for joining me. As always I appreciate you coming along. If you like this video give it a thumbs up. If you haven't subscribed please consider subscribing. It's free and it helps the channel a lot. I appreciate you all coming on this adventure. It was it was awesome. It was just what I needed. See you on the next one everybody. Bye-bye.