Big Five / Little Five Lakes Loop

This is the Cliff Creek crossing, and just above it is a camp with a bear-box. This crossing may be "interesting" early season.

Cliff Creek

Big 5, Little 5 Lakes Loop and Sawtooth Pass, August 4th to 7th, 2000..

After dropping like a rock for a mile or so, the trail reached a level area above a gorge and traversed to a moraine and crossed over its top. Following on or near the crest of the moraine, the trail continued to descend until it finally met a set of switchbacks that slowly lowered me into the Cliff Creek canyon.

At long last the trail found Cliff Creek which I crossed over to a campsite with a bear box. Here I took a break and cleaned up the trash left behind by careless backpackers. The camp was a beat-out dirty mess, and I did not entertain any ideas of camping there. As soon as I finished my belated lunch I headed out towards Pinto Lake.

Much of the journey to Cliff Creek and above is through lush greenery. The flowers were thick in places.

Climbing steeply on poor trail in the Sierra version of a jungle, I worried there would be few campsites to choose from. One of the keynotes of my route on this trip was the lack of good level "clean" camps far from the beat-out and not so level camps near bear-boxes, particularly on this side of Blackrock Pass. I passed a horse-packer and he told me flat out there were no other camps below Pinto Lake other than the one at the junction. I figured I would be able to find something, but he was darn near right.