Logistics for Thousand Island Lake (2024)

Thousand Island Lake in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, which is a part of the Inyo National Forest, has been on my bucket list for over a decade. Information on the permitting system and the shuttle system currently in place to access the trailheads at Agnew Meadows was kind of scattered, so I decided to collect all that information here for anyone looking to do the hike.

Getting permits

Wilderness permits are required to backpack in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, which is part of the Inyo National Forest. The first 60% of permits are released months ahead on Recreation.gov, and the remaining 40% is released two weeks before your trip date. We originally wanted to do this hike over July 4th weekend so we could maximize PTO and the long weekend, but it was crazy competitive.

We logged on at 6:59AM on June 21st, ready to go. As soon as it hit 7AM, I saw the permits get released: 30 per day for the trailhead we were starting at. I immediately clicked for 3 permits, clicked "go to cart", AND THEY WERE ALREADY GONE. All permits were gone by 7:01AM. I'm 95% sure that people are scripting bots that reserve as many permits as they can, which is honestly kind of shitty.

I wasn't giving up. I was going to do this hike, this summer, because the previous summers had crazy wildfires and COVID and I wasn't going to wait another year to do this. We already made plans throughout the rest of the summer, so the July 4th weekend was the last weekend we could feasibly do a road trip out to Inyo County.

I was wary of going earlier because of the large snowpack from the past winter and the fact that the lakes were still partially frozen on June 21st. Buuuuuut, I spotted two permits still available for entry on June 29th. So I said fuck it and decided we'll just hope for the best with the snow.

There was also a last-minute cancellation for a Friday entry on Wednesday 6/27, so our friend, who booked a Saturday permit and was planning to meet up with us at Thousand Island Lake, was able to join us for the whole 3 days. Yay! It's always worth checking for cancellations.

Reds Meadow shuttle

It was pretty annoying figuring out the logistics for this trip because of the ongoing road construction and road closures in the Mammoth area, specifically for the road we'd need to take to get to the trailhead. All trails in the Reds Meadow Valley area are closed and inaccessible to all starting every Sunday at 7PM thru Friday at 9AM. In other words, the only days you can enter and exit the trails are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I'm guessing this also plays a factor into why getting permits is probably even more competitive than usual.

Only the Reds Meadow shuttles operated by the Eastern Sierra Transit are allowed to use the road when it is open. I did call the Mammoth Visitor Information Center to inquire whether there was a window of time where we could drive ourselves to the trailhead: the answer was yes, but only on Friday and before 9AM, or, on Sunday between 7-11PM. This made it kind of tricky because it was a 40 minute drive to the trailhead from the campground we booked for the night before (Thursday) and it's hard to reliably predict when you might be done with the trail. We'd either have to drag out our hike on Sunday so we'd get to car around 7PM, or just suck it up and use the shuttle for the whole trip.

After coordinating our friend, we decided that taking the shuttle seemed easier. The shuttle tickets cost $15/person for a roundtrip ticket -- although the nice part is that your return date doesn't matter -- and we would be constrained in a different way: we'd have to finish hiking by 5PM the latest to make sure that we'd be able to get out of Reds Meadow Valley. The shuttles are first-come, first-served and run only every 45 minutes between 4:45-7PM. You can find all the details on Mammoth's website.

The Sonora Highway

If you're leaving from the Bay Area, Google Maps usually tells you to take Tioga Road, or Highway 120, which cuts through the northern part of Yosemite National Park. Yosemite now requires a vehicle day pass basically every day from late spring through the early fall. The vehicle reservations are also insanely competitive, and because our trip was so last minute, there was nothing online. So that route was a no-go.

Google suggested a (stupid) alternate route that takes you all the way north to Lake Tahoe and adds an extra 60-90 minutes on an already long, six-hour drive (without stops). Don't listen to Google. Take the Sonora Highway, or Highway 108, which cuts through Stanislaus National Forest. It's actually slightly faster than Tioga Road, and also still very scenic. Unfortunately, I didn't take many photos during the drive, but it was full of huge granite walls, snow-capped peaks, and raging rivers. The highway peaks at 9,623-feet in elevation at the Sonora Pass, so you get to experience some pretty drastic altitude change coming from sea-level San Francisco.

We stopped at a campground near Kennedy Meadows for a pee break and picked up a nice couple doing the PCT who needed to hitchhike back to one of the trailheads after resupplying. They flew all the way from Germany to do the PCT and had just hit 1,000-miles! Badass.

We were in the final stretch of the drive when the Sonora Highway finally ends and meets the 395 highway. If you're looking for a good road trip to do in the U.S., Highway 395 is one of the most beautiful drives. It starts right outside of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains, hugs the entirety of the Eastern Sierras, past Lake Tahoe, and into Central Oregon. Every time we drive it, it takes my breath away.

This was my first time driving this portion of Highway 395 since we always come out of Tioga Road. We were descending the rest of the ride into Mammoth, and when we were coming down one of the hills, we got to see the entirety of Mono Lake! I had no idea it was so massive. When you take Tioga Road, you only ever see the southernmost edge of the lake. Even when you visit the reserve to see the famous tufas, you're probably seeing at most 15% of the whole lake. It was really awesome seeing the whole lake for the first time.

There was a huge wildfire visible on the eastern edge of the lake, which made us a little concerned about how it'd impact the air quality on the hike. Luckily, the Pizona Fire has been contained as of July 6 -- shout out to Cal-Fire and all the other firefighting crews!

Trailhead access

Mammoth is a super expensive tourist destination, so D and I opted to camp the night before to save money. It cost $30 for the night at the Pine Glen Campground. It's a decent campground with flushing toilets, lit bathroom stalls, and potable water. Kind of as luxurious as you can hope for while camping. The only disadvantage is that it's right by the road, so you can hear cars going by at night. I always bring earplugs camping and that seemed to do well enough.

We all struggled with getting up on Friday morning. The alarm went off at 5:30AM, but we weren't packed up until 7AM. I did not sleep well and got maybe a few hours at most so I was not doing so hot already. The original goal was to be packed up by 6AM, grab a good breakfast and coffee, and be in the shuttle line by 8:30AM to catch the first bus leaving at 9AM.

We wanted something hearty before we settled into eating bars and dehydrated food for the next three days. I got a four-egg omelette with hash browns at the local diner and a super solid cold brew at Black Velvet Coffee Roaster (highly recommend and it's also a wine bar!). The bathrooms in the complex where Black Velvet Coffee is were also really nice and we made good use of it that morning to make sure we were as cleaned out as possible before hitting the trail.

Even though it was 9:30AM by the time we started driving to the shuttle pick-up area, I did do some trail math and felt pretty good that we'd have enough time to set up camp well before dusk.

The parking situation was a little frustrating; the closest lot, A, was only for day parking and tourists. Backpackers had to park at lot B, which was definitely an extra 0.3 miles. Doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're carrying a 30lb pack, you don't want to carry it for longer than you have to.

The shuttle line was massive when we arrived at 10AM. There's supposed to be a shuttle every 20 minutes between 10AM - 2PM, but the first one did not come until 10:45AM. They were running way behind schedule and the info center workers said that each shuttle only fit about 40 people. There was no way we'd be on the first, or even second, shuttle that arrived. That was kind of stressful, since it meant we would be starting even later than I'd buffered for because I assumed that the shuttles would be running on time. So definitely budget for more time than you think you'll need if you're using the shuttle, especially if you're starting late morning.

Thankfully, three shuttles came within the span of 15 minutes, and we were able to squeeze onto one of them.

It was kind of nice taking the shuttle instead of driving Reds Meadow Road with our car. The road was really rough and really narrow; there were times where the tires of the shuttle were going over the drop-off and that was a little spooky.

I was starting to get motion sickness from the windy roads, so it was such a huge relief that Agnew Meadows (our trailhead) was the first shuttle stop. It was about 11:30AM when we got dropped off; super duper late start for a day hike, let alone backpacking. But we were finally off!

You can follow the rest of the adventure in the main post: 2N/3D Backpacking to Thousand Island Lake.