Follow Along our Travels!

If you’ve read a couple of my backpacking posts, you know that I am the type of person that sets my alarm for 7am 6 months before I want to go backpacking in order to secure a permit. Because of our schedule, and our relative newness to backpacking, I don’t like to leave much up to chance.

For the last 3 years, I’ve been trying to get my hands on an overnight permit for the Big Pines Lake Loop – North Fork (the north fork part is very important when securing this permit). I heard from other friends that it was the best backpacking hike in the Eastern Sierras. I heard the the views were unlike anything you can see elsewhere. I heard it is the closest thing to Patagonia California has. Patagonia?!? Are you serious? I had to check it out. Fast forward to August 2025, and I finally was able secure a permit and go.

Did it live up to the hype? Yes, definitely. Any person that loves backpacking should make it a point to do this trail at least once. Also, even if you don’t love backpacking, you can day hike this trail too (without a permit)!

Basic Itinerary

We had a very busy summer 2025 but still wanted/needed to get up to higher elevation and closer to the trail head the night before our trip. This meant a late night, after work jaunt up the 395 to the Starlite Motel in Big Pine. This motel is a crash pad but it has clean beds, clean showers and is pretty quiet considering it is on the 395. Added bonus is Big Pine has a great coffee shop, Brewed Awakening, that serves food and has some takeout/to-go options for hikers. Highly recommend!

After a late night getting in and an early morning getting up, we stopped and got our coffee, our lunch for Day 1 (we always bring non-backpacking food for this lunch), and then hit the road to the trail head which is about 20 minutes from the town of Big Pine. We got to the lot around 7:15am and there was still overnight parking close to the trail head. Note that most of the parking near the trail head is for day hikers (and there isn’t a lot). There is a small overnight lot there too but there is a larger overnight lot about 0.5 miles away from the trail head.

After arranging our packs and our bear canister (yes, required!), we were on trail by around 7:45am. I’m very grateful we started so early as the trail has very little shade and we were hiking in mid-August so it was a warm day. I had read on other backpacking blogs that the exposure was really bad for the first part of the hike but honestly there was hardly any shade throughout the whole 5 miles up. There is this very cool cabin (Lon Chaney Cabin) that is about half way to Lake 1. This was a great place to rest legs and fill up water as the river rages through here.

While the hike up was tougher than I had anticipated (miles + elevation gain + heat/sun = slow going hike in), it is a pretty one. You can hear the river throughout the hike and are often right next to it which helped with the heat some. There is an aspen grove that you go through which would be gorgeous in the fall. And when you take the the time to look up, the views of the mountains are stunning!

Finally you start seeing some of the famous glacial blue water that the lakes up here (at least Lakes 1-3) are known for. I was a little underwhelmed when we rounded the corner and saw Lake 1. However, that just set the stage for awe that is Lake 2. There are several very good reasons why this hike is so popular on social media and Lake 2 delivers on all of them: the color of the lake is shockingly blue, the spire (Temple Crag) dominates the background of the lake as you get near it, and the crown of mountains behind Temple Crag provides the absolute perfect end destination for a hike.

Of course, this was not the end of our hike (but usually is for day hikers). We opted to continue past Lake 2 and check out Lake 3 as we heard from a ranger that there were a lot of sites around Lake 3 and it is generally less crowded than Lake 2. There is about a 1/2 mile and 400ft elevation gain from Lake 2 to Lake 3 (and I may have been cursing the whole way up to it), but once we got there I was so grateful someone had pointed it out to us. I think it is even prettier than Lake 2 in color and you get closer to Temple Crag at Lake 3. As with most backpacking sites, there are “a lot” of options but only a few premier spots. We managed to snag one just off the trail that allowed some privacy and gorgeous views.

After setting up, we were pretty beat from the hike in and the late night before, but we managed to hike back to Lake 2 to get a real read on it and soak in its gorgeousness. As expected, it was quite crowded from day hikers getting their pictures in. I’m just grateful people are out there exploring nature! Although I did feel bad for the person who had pitched their tent right in the main thoroughfare – 10/10 do not recommend doing this!

While the top down views of the lake are what people come for, there are actually very few options to get down to the lake level at Lake 2. We managed to hike down to a beach on the back side of the lake and enjoy the views. After a long day, we headed back to our site at Lake 3, took a (very) quick backpacking shower in the freezing water and then settled in for dinner/the night.

Day two was our big adventure day where we set out to explore the remaining lakes in the area. That’s right. While Lake 2 is the most photographed, there are actually 7 lakes in this area, plus a gorgeous and surprising meadow (more on that in a bit). The first 3 lakes are glacially fed so produce that other-worldly water color, but the remaining lakes are not to be missed. Our favorite was lake 5 as it is a perfect example of an alpine lake (nestled against a crown of mountains) and from Lake 5, you can see the Palisades Glacier! There is an option to hike to the glacier and we considered it but we had weather rolling in and didn’t want to chance being up at the glacier when a thunderstorm rolled through. We made it to all of the higher elevation lakes and really enjoyed exploring the area and bushwacking to Lake 7.

Now for my real highlight (okay, that’s not fair as I loved this entire weekend of hiking) but the one that was my biggest surprise was Sam Mack Meadow. The hike up to this was not hard (it is about 700 feet elevation gain from where we slept) but we did it at the end of the day so it felt longer. However, once you crest the mini-ridge the meadow opens up and continues in a long straight path towards the base of the mountains. It is stunning and serene and provides that perfect moment in the mountains where you realize just how small you are in this great and beautiful world.

All in all, this hike lived up to its VERY big reputation; however I would say that is due more to the area itself rather than the very stunning Lake 2 that is so popular. The moral of the story is while social media is a good starting point for curiosity, getting out and exploring an area in its entirety painted a fuller picture of this region and I’m so grateful we finally got to experience it.

Tips for Backpacking/Changes to this Itinerary:

• The itinerary shows the general hiking we did and the GPS map shows the exact one. I honestly wouldn’t change anything we did do. If I could, I would have stayed one more day to get to the glacier but with only 1 full day of hiking, we couldn’t do all the lakes + glacier and chose the lakes instead.
• While I think there are only 15 permits per night granted in this area, it is a very popular day hike spot. I would highly recommend camping at Lake 3 if you want to avoid the majority of people. However, even then, your tent area will still see some traffic. If you really want to avoid people, Lake 4 and Lake 5 have great options for pitching a tent.
• The chipmunks and squirrels in the area are far more aggressive than any other backpacking trip I’ve been on. Make sure you don’t leave any food out (even briefly while getting your stove going) and make sure you pack out your bathroom material. I saw quite a bit of shredded paper that I can only assume was TP.