First Backpacking Experience: Desolation Wilderness

I’ve always enjoyed hiking, and camping is something I’ve rediscovered over the past few years after a rather long hiatus since my girl scout days (but I still remember those camping trips to Sunset Beach!). However, never have I combined the two in the form of backpacking until earlier this month. We’d been talking about it for a while — after all, this is a skill that will let me see more of the national parks — and some good friends, much more experienced outdoorspeople, had offered to help us through our inaugural experience.

First stop was REI to use up our member coupons and dividends to procure new camping backpacks and a few other essentials. Good thing about going with experienced friends was that we didn’t need to buy all the gear, but we did get some good quality insulating layers since the forecast was calling for temperatures in the 20s and our own water filter (trust me – you don’t mess with giardia, giardia messes with you!). Next stop: the Desolation Wilderness in the El Dorado National Forest near South Lake Tahoe. Side note: I took my first non-scout camping trip in Death Valley and first backpacking in Desolation Wilderness – I’m sensing a theme here.

Our friends truly tried to take it easy on us on this single-night camping trip: We started from a parking lot near Wright’s lake, where the forest service has a seemingly nice summer campground facility, and hiked the ~5 miles or so into the Desolation Wilderness to Twin Lakes. Not a long hike, but the elevation went from 7000 ft at Wright’s Lake to ~8200 ft at Twin Lakes. I tend to need a day or so to adjust to higher elevations, so between that and some other extenuating circumstances, I was really struggling with the uphill. Add in the dropping temperatures and nerves about backpacking for the first time, and I was admittedly pretty miserable the first day (I was missing the Final Four for this?). In my defense, I still contend that the term “leisurely hike” is relative when you’re talking about trudging through snow and ice to get to a frozen lake… The scenery could not be beat, however!

We set up camp next to a large boulder near the outlet to the lake. Our trusty guides had brought along a few extras to help deal with the cold temps, including an extra sleeping bag, battery-powered heated gloves (amazing!), and the makings of warm backcountry pizzas cooked up on the little backpacking stove. I was quite impressed by the pizzas – campmade dough and everything! The nighttime brought cold winds, but I stayed fairly cozy in the the sleeping bag(s) and tent. When I had to get up in the middle of the night, there was definitely snow crunching underfoot, but it didn’t stick through to the morning.

In the morning, we said goodbye to the lake – it really was quite an amazing site all frozen and covered in ice! Fueled up with hot cocoa and oatmeal spiked with dried apples and trail mix, we headed back down to the car. I only fell on my butt once while trekking over the fresh ice, and in general I was able to appreciate the hike and the landscape a lot more on the way down. That being said, I was pretty excited to make it back to the car, even more excited to reach 4G range to find out Duke was going to the NCAA finals, and even more excited to reach a veggie burger in Placerville. So, perhaps my first backpacking experience was not completed with as much ease as I had hoped, but under some slightly different circumstances, I think I would have really enjoyed this hike. I’ll definitely have to give it another go and (very) slowly work my way up to being a backcountry camper!