17-22 December 2021
Several trails in Inyo National Forest
(15 miles, +3,000/-3,000 feet).

For the past few weeks, Half Cookie and I talked about getting away before the holiday break to do some day hikes in the Sierra. We both love Bishop, and I was eager to return to the place where I ended my PCT hike in the Spring to see how it looks in winter.

But winter wasn’t coming!

Up to just a few days ago there was hardly any snow at all. It seemed like we might actually be able to do a normal dry day hike to one of the alpine lakes below Bishop Pass or in the Sabrina Basin.

And then it finally snowed! So we packed snowshoes and microspikes and hit the road.

First stop: the Alabama Hills. I have never actually hiked there, having always been in a rush to get to or from the Sierra trailheads. The Arch Loop was a nice place to stretch our legs from the drive and see the crazy formations that make this area so popular.

After a hike and a meal in Lone Pine at the Alabama Hills Cafe (my favorite!) we finished the drive up to Bishop and checked into our AirBnB.

The next day we decided to try out our showshoes on the road up to North Lake. They close this road to traffic during the winter so people can enjoy it on foot.

But as it turns out, Half Cookie was not much of a fan of the snowshoes. We decided to turn around and try again with microspikes in a couple of days.

Our plan B hike was a trail I found on Caltopo, but it was deep with snow and no one had hiked on it, so we mainly just postholed for an hour.

Finally, we figured out that the best thing to do in these conditions was to go find an ATV road that was compacted enough that our spikes would dig in. We followed a bunch of rock climbers up to “the Hogback” and parked there before climbing the road towards Mount Tom.

The next day I felt under the weather, so we just stayed cozy in the AirBnB. It was equipped with thrilling board games.

Fortunately, my mini-cold passed and we were able to try the North Lake hike again the following day. It was spectacular!

On our last full day we drove up the Glacier Lodge Road until the winter closure and hiked from there to the Big Pine Creek Trail to do a little loop around Glacier Lodge. This was my favorite hike — we did it on a weekday and we saw no one but some CalFire guys at the parking lot and a couple of skiiers when we were almost back to the car.

On the way back to San Diego, we did a slight detour to Red Rock Canyon State Park. There was a nice little 2 mile loop there to finish out our lovely trip.

When we were almost done with this hike, we met a guy who was walking barefoot on trail and feeling up a cactus. He said to us “you should try it!”

He had just been to some kind of new age retreat and was clearly enjoying his new perspective. His enthusiasm was infectious, but we passed on losing our shoes….