Hoover Wilderness, Yosemite: Benson Lake Loop via Twin Lakes (2026)

Dates: Sept 5-8, 2026

I first heard about Benson Lake after another backpacker mentioned it earlier this summer at the Tuolumne Meadows wilderness center. I looked into routes for getting to the lake and its famed beach, and this ~50 mile loop out of Robinson Creek in the Hoover Wilderness looked like the most interesting route. This loop is relatively popular; the majority of the people I ran into on the trail also were hiking this route. I hiked it clockwise over 4 days, the direction recommended by others online, and I agree with them as most of the elevation gain is at the beginning of the day. Water felt quite accessible most of the time even at this time of the year and you could probably just carry 1L the whole trip (I carried 2).

Day 1: Robinson Creek Trailhead to Crown Lake (8.5 miles)

It was a little breezy on the way out, and I saw a decent number of people up to Barney Lake. I ran into a wilderness ranger who just did the same loop and gave me some info about the water situation; I mainly remember him saying that Kerrick Meadow was dry. (This was not a problem for the last day as there was plenty of water earlier/further south along the canyon.) Past Barney lake most people seemed like they were headed to Peeler Lake. I got to Crown Lake pretty early in the afternoon; there was only one other group set up there already. The winds never got too strong, but it kept up all evening and through the night and the occasional gust would really shake my tent.

Day 2: Crown Lake to Matterhorn Canyon PCT Junction (13 miles)

I slept surprisingly well with earplugs to block the sound of the wind; it got decently cold when standing out in the open with all the wind. The day started off with the wind still blowing, and it would keep going until later this evening. Despite the winds, it was still very enjoyable as this was probably the most scenic day on the loop. Mule and Burro Pass both had fantastic views of the Sawtooth Ridge and Matterhorn canyon respectively. From Mule you could see the huge mountain ridge that you would approach on the way to Burro, and then looking any direction from Burro was quite epic. The ridge is right next to you now, and the upper part of Matterhorn canyon is rather wide and you can see really far down. After Burro it was easy hiking down the windy Matterhorn canyon, following the creek all the way to the PCT junction where I camped for the night. Just one other couple was camped at this spot with me. Thankfully the wind from earlier in the day died down, and it would remain relatively calm to the end of my hike.

Day 3: Matterhorn Canyon to Benson Lake (11.5 miles)

I woke up to frozen condensation inside my tent, which made it easy to shake most of it off. I didn’t have a lot of ground to cover, so I had a slow start to the day. I passed a few SOBO PCT hikers on this section, and then I saw no one from Smedberg Lake all the way to Benson Lake. When I was on the way down from Benson Pass, one PCT hiker said there was apparently service at Benson Pass. My phone was always in airplane mode, and I missed my opportunity to test his claim; perhaps for the better. At the junction for Benson Lake I saw one adult bear and one younger one pretty close to the trail, but they minded their own business and walked away from me. Benson Lake really did live up to the hype; it was rather surreal to suddenly walk into a huge beach after going through the half mile of forest from the lake turn off. I never really looked at pictures of the beach before I went so this was all a surprise to me. It was a warm afternoon, perfect for a swim and then just relaxing on the sand. 

By evening there were two couples and one PCT hiker camped there with me but there was plenty of space. It was another windless night, and I had a decent night of sleep after running out to the beach for one more quick astrophotography session.

Day 4: Benson Lake to Trailhead (19 miles)

After enjoying the sunrise light over the calm waters of Benson Lake, I got started a bit earlier since I had a longer day today and still needed to drive home after. Most itineraries I read about stop at Peeler Lake but with my limited time off, it being all downhill from there, and most of the trail after the lake was the lollipop stem part of the loop that I already hiked on the way in, I just headed all the way back to the trailhead. After climbing out of the valley of Benson Lake and over Seavey Pass, there was a long stretch of relatively flat hiking through open meadows and through Kerrick Meadow before getting to Peeler Lake. Again not a lot of people on this section, only saw two other groups headed toward Benson for the day. There’s a small official diversion around Kerrick Meadow to restore it right before Peeler Lake. From there it was pretty much all downhill back to the trailhead. Overall a fantastic loop with a good amount of solitude and would highly recommend it.

Yosemite: Chain Lakes + Gale Peak (2026)

Dates: July 3-4, 2026

This trip is, in a way, a continuation of the last trip I had at Cathedral Lakes. When picking up the permits at the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Center, the ranger had asked other backpackers where they had been before in Yosemite, and one mentioned Chain Lakes. I noted this down to look up later when I got back home. Turns out these lakes were tucked away in the southeast most corner of the park, a part of the park I never looked at in detail before. In fact, I’ve never really been in any part of the southern half of Yosemite. I always drove in through 120 or 140 into the valley or Tuolumne Meadows. 

The out and back trail from the Chiquito Trailhead to Chain Lakes was perfect to run on the long July 4th weekend: the permits were freely available from the Sierra National Forest outside of the park, avoiding all the main traffic through the valley. I didn’t need the long weekend and could have easily done this any other weekend, but decided I just wanted a one nighter and Sunday to relax. I invited Arthur to join me on this trip, and we headed out Friday morning at 6AM. We stopped in Oakhurst to get some food and pick up the permit, and got to the trailhead around 11:30 AM. We took a little longer than expected because the Google Maps location for the Oakhurst Sierra NF office was wrong; you actually need to go to the welcome center that has the National Forest sign on it. For others looking to get to this trailhead: the last two miles along the gravel road were easy to drive in my sedan, and when the ranger called me before about the permits they said the road to Quartz Mountain is unmaintained and requires a high clearance 4x4 vehicle. They were also able to move my permit from the North Fork office to the Oakhurst office so I didn’t need to detour out of the way.

Day 1: Chiquito Trailhead to Upper Chain Lake and Gale Peak (8.5 miles, +2.3k ft; +2 miles, +1k ft for Gale Peak)

The weather was perfect for the weekend; just a little hot at the start of the trail but we knew it would only get cooler from here on out as we climbed. The first few miles were rather uneventful, just hiking in a forest without any major viewpoints but with a decent number of trees fallen over the trail. Afterwards the trail is easy to follow and clear. After we got to the Upper Chain Lake, we set up camp and then started on our off-trail climb up Gale Peak. Going around the lake was relatively easy, and then there was a pretty clear chute up to the ridge. We had incredible views of Chain Lakes and Breeze Lake as we ascended. After going up ~90% of the way up, we decided to turn around due to the approaching sunset and increasing Class 2-3 scrambling that I was not confident in. We should have started earlier, and we will return to get to the top another day.

Mosquitoes were strong near the backside of Lower Chain Lakes, at sunset in our campsite at Upper Chain Lakes and along the gully to Gale Peak.

Breeze Lake from the ascent up Gale Peak

Panorama of Chain and Breeze Lakes from near the summit

Descending in sunset

Sunset

Stargazing

As for the busyness of the trail, we saw one other person at trailhead, a family of four returning on the way out, a couple at Middle chain lakes, and one person leaving Upper Chain Lakes as we got there. Not busy at all, especially for a holiday weekend. As we passed the couple at Middle Chain Lakes, they offered us two canned beers that we gladly accepted to take. I don’t usually drink but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of having a cold one at camp. I think we were alone at night at Upper Chain Lakes.

Day 2: Upper Chain Lake to Chiquito Trailhead (8.5 miles)

The next morning we had a slow start to the day, taking a dip into the lake before booking it back to the trailhead. We had lunch and then decided to visit the Mariposa grove for the first time (as far as I can remember) and did a quick trail run to look at all the trees before driving home. I’d like to come back to this area and do some longer routes; maybe a one-way from Chain Lakes out to Wawona past Buena Vista Lake if I could make the car situation work.

The sunrise warming up the day

Perfect turquoise water

Cracking a cold one

Running though the grove

Yosemite: Cathedral Lakes to Sunrise (2026)

Dates: June 13-14, 2026

When trawling the Yosemite permits availability in my free time, as one does, I saw there were permits open for this weekend (and the whole first half of June) just wide open a few weeks before and just decided to get permits for Cathedral Lakes. I had never been there before and have only heard great things about the location. My only hesitation was the prospect of huge swarms of mosquitoes that spawn in June —  I still have vivid memories of the swarms of mosquitoes my friends and I encountered at the Sunrise trailhead to Cloud’s Rest on Juneteenth two years ago.

The route I wanted to take was somewhat up in the air; I could just do a simple out and back from the Cathedral Lakes, or do this off-trail loop that I found online that goes around to the Matthes and Echo Lakes, with the opportunities to scramble up the Echo Peaks. A slightly larger loop could go all the way through the Sunrise Lakes and loop back along Tenaya Lake and back up to Lower Cathedral Lake to the Cathedral trailhead.

Day 1: Tuolumne Meadows to Upper Sunrise Lake (12 miles, +2,300 ft)

I decided to make a run-time decision after picking up our permits at the Tuolumne Meadows Wilderness Center to just go on the main Cathedral Lakes trail and probably loop back along Tenaya and Tioga. (We saw a woman hiking the PCT at this wilderness center that I would see again next week at Palisades when I ran Broken Arrow!) The ranger asked all the backpackers picking up permits if they had been backpacked in Yosemite before, and if so where they had been before and what was their favorite place. One mentioned Benson Lake and another mentioned Chain Lakes, and I made a mental note to look into these places for the future.

We first visited Lower Cathedral lakes, and along the trail we ran into another group of three hiking in the same direction as us. I didn’t immediately recognize them, but they vaguely recognized me -- they were Thomas and Emily (along with Thomas’s [? can’t remember perfectly] father this time) that we ran into last year along the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne! What a coincidence that we happened to be on the same trailhead on the same day again. I told them of our original backpacking plan, and they were following a similar route except that they had two cars and were going to exit out of the Sunrise trailhead. They offered to give me a ride back to Tuolumne Meadows if we wanted to do the same route, and we would eventually take them up on that offer.

There were some mosquitoes at the Lower and Upper Cathedral lakes but they were pretty mild. We saw a slack line setup on Cathedral peak as we first approached it earlier in the day, and when we reached Upper Cathedral lake we saw someone successfully cross the line. 

Slackline!

We continued along the JMT and first scouted out the Sunrise High Sierra camp as a place to stay for the night but the mosquito situation there was pretty gnarly, and we decided to push onwards to the Sunrise lakes. Still not great there, but better and as the sunset the bug pressure really dropped. My dinner was prepackaged Japanese curry and instant ramen with a bit too much water. I didn’t want to accidentally burn the curry in the pot. It would have been better without the excess water :). 

Day 2: Upper Sunrise Lake to Sunrise Trailhead/Tenaya Lake (4 miles)

The descent back to the Sunrise trailhead the next day was short and smooth sailing. We had a long break at the trailhead, swimming in Tenaya Lake and just lounging on the beach. It was nice to drive home early from a backpacking trip, as we were able to stop by Meadowlark Dairy on the way back for some ice cream.

Thanks Tommy and Jessica for joining me on this rather scuffed journey (and tanking the mosquitos), and thanks to Thomas and Emily for giving us a ride back to the original trailhead.

Emigrant Wilderness: Buck Lakes (2026)

Dates: May 23-25, 2026

A simple long Memorial day weekend outing back out in Emigrant Wilderness. By some coincidence and some changing plans for the days, every day had about the same mileage. We headed out around 6 AM, picked up a permit, and got to the Crabtree trailhead. As expected for a long weekend with good weather and no permit quota limits, the parking lot was packed.

Day 1: Crabtree Trailhead to Gem Lake (10.8 miles, +2,200 ft)

This first part of this trail was familiar, as I was just here last year at Bear Lake. Most of the trail was dry, with the occasional small patch of snow along the sides. There were two major water crossings, one knee deep at Piute Creek past Lily Lake, and a second one crotch deep at the West Fork of Cherry Creek before Gem Lake.

Headed out.

Water crossing.

We set up camp at Gem Lake and got a fire going for the backpacking TV. I had a Mie-goreng and a chicken packet for dinner; this was the first time I had Mie-goreng while backpacking and forgot that there was one sauce packet that was rather viscous. It got all over my fingers and was rather annoying to clean up. Gah. Thanks again Webster for bringing smores for the night. It was fun (and a little messy, but not as grief as the Mie-goreng) trying to get the perfect char on the marshmallows. The most distinct thing I remember of this campsite was the smell of the wild onions scattered all around. 

Relaxing at camp.

Stargazing.

Day 2: Day Trip from Gem Lake to Buck Lakes (10.8 miles, +1,000 ft)

Gem Lake was going to be our base camp, so we left all our sleeping gear and bear cans at our campsite. We did a day hike to Buck Lakes with reduced pack load, and intended to make a loop around along the parallel south trail. Once again this part of the trail was familiar as the Granite Dome loop I backpacked last year also touched the climb out of Buck Lakes.

One of the few larger patches of snow.

Snowman at Buck Lakes.

Buck Lakes on film.

Durston city.

Past Buck Lakes was a flooded meadow that other backpackers said was impassible, so we went off trail to go north around the lake and cut back to the original trail. We scouted around the lake/river and found an area about crotch deep that we could safely cross.

Detour along the southern part of the loop.

After drying off, we returned up the closer turnoff for another night at Gem Lake.

Day 3: Gem Lake back to Crabtree Trailhead (10.8 miles, +1,000 ft)

This was a pretty uneventful day; we hiked back along the original trail since we were unsure about the water crossing conditions along the south part of the original loop since it follows the river given the height of the crossings we faced the previous two days.

We had dinner at Backwoods Burger, not bad. Hard to go wrong with burgers and fries after a hike. Thanks to Christina, Jessica, Tommy, and Webster for inviting me along to their trip.

Big Sur: Boronda Trail to Timber Top Camp (2025)

Dates: October 18-19, 2025

I was itching to get back outside for a quick backpacking trip, and with the Sierras getting colder I looked closer to the coast. I’ve had my eye on this Timber Top campsite for a while now for the views, and the weather this past weekend looked perfect. I left the Bay Area around noon on Saturday and was also back on Sunday by noon.

I carried up 4.5L of water since the campsite is dry, but after I came back with over a liter left I would have been fine with 3.5L. Always better to have more and I could have used some to lightly wash up at the top. There is apparently a spring just past halfway up on the trail on a branch off to the left (north) along Lafler creek that you could refill water from. I saw the branch off point but did not go investigate.

Day 1: Boronda Trailhead to Timber Top (3 miles, +2,500 ft elevation gain)

I wanted to get up camp before sunset, so I started driving down to the Boronda trailhead just past noon and got there around 3PM. Even the drive down was more beautiful than I expected; I fully understand why people drive Highway 1 now. I’ve only ever gone down to Point Lobos in the last several years and don’t remember the last time I’ve gone farther. The weather was truly perfect; the skies were cloudless but I had the clouds of the marine layer below me.

Parking was easy; there was plenty of room along the side of the road for the approximately 7 cars parked at the trailhead. I pretty much did not stop hiking on the way up (except for the occasional photo) and passed a few groups that were doing the same trip. The views of the ocean were incredible, but the uphill grind was non-stop all the way to the top. There were a few short sections that were slightly flat and shaded that I greatly appreciated; my calves felt stretched the entire time on the steep ridge trail.

Peak chair placement at the home near the trailhead.

I got to Timber Top camp proper in about 1.5hrs, and then headed a little past it to find an open campsite on the ridges that had an unobstructed view of the ocean. There was a chain of three sites branching off of the main ridge, and I settled down on the middle one.

Hachiware on another great adventure.

I did a little painting (I really need to sit down and practice painting foliage more, and just slow down in general) before setting up my camp and getting settled for the sunset. There was just a slight breeze that fully died down some time in the middle of the night. Definitely a top ten sunset that I’ve ever seen; there’s something just magical about being above a cloud layer and seeing the shadows of the clouds get deeper and deeper as the sun sets. As it got to true darkness, I did a little stargazing before heading to sleep.

Day 2: Timber Top to Boronda Trailhead (3 miles, 2,500 ft elevation loss)

Just like the sunset, I woke up to a similarly incredible sunrise above the clouds of the marine  layer. I had a very restful sleep, unlike some of my other nights out in the wilderness this year, and was able to enjoy the morning while drinking some miso soup for breakfast. I took some more photos before packing up and heading back. It was a perfect weekend getaway, with plenty of time for the rest of the day to get other things done.

Waking up.

Sunrise.

Another group descending below me.