2N/3D Backpacking to Thousand Island Lake, Part 2 (2024)

On day 2 of our backpacking trip through the Ansel Adams Wilderness, D and I hiked from Ediza Lake to Thousand Island Lake. For the first day and the lead-in to our trip, you can read Day 1: Shadow and Ediza Lakes.

Day 2: Garnet and Thousand Island Lake

It was a sleepless night at Ediza. It was barely 2AM and I was wide awake from some excruciating shoulder pain. I usually sleep on my back, but end up rolling onto my sides because my back starts to hurt from the sleeping pad. The lack of padding for side-sleeping meant that a lot of weight was being put onto my shoulders.

I also was having trouble staying asleep in general, which is really odd because I had already taken my sleep medication for the evening and that usually gets me through most of the night. (I wouldn't learn until after we got off the trail that sleeplessness is a symptom of altitude sickness and the first night was just the start of a slew of problems). D was also battling a headache and had to take Tylenol for it as well (not a good sign since he never uses pain meds).

I've taken Tylenol and aspirin for the shoulder pain for previous flare-ups during backpacking, but it did not work this time. And that really sucked because my shoulder pain was radiating into my neck and giving me a headache.

So I just tossed around until the alarm went off at 5:30AM. I was actually so relieved to get the day started and hoped that the pain would ebb once we started moving around. D was still sound asleep, so I got out of the tent first to catch the sunrise.

I probably spent a full hour just walking along the lake and taking pictures. I also tried doing a time-lapse on my phone, which was actually not that interesting because the light was changing too slowly.

When I got back to camp, D was finally moving about in the tent. We brushed up and made breakfast, which was a small cup of miso soup each (we found these AMAZING dehydrated miso soup cubes at 99 Ranch and now they're my favorite camping food item) and my personal favorite dehydrated breakfast, the "Granola with Blueberries, Almonds, and Milk" from Backpacker's Pantry. It's actually tasty and contains 620 calories and 16g of protein. Yum.

I don't know why we are always so slow to get moving, but somehow D and I are always the last people to leave a campsite and get going. Our alarm is always the first to go off -- usually 5:30-6:30AM --, and somehow the time whiles away and we don't get our packs on until 10AM. Every. time.

All of us had the misfortune of needing to go the big #2 in the morning after breakfast, and each one of us got wrecked. I found a better spot than the one I tried the previous night that was completely out of sight and had no mosquitoes (although it was wayyyy farther and higher)...at least until the very end, when I was about finished. I was still bitten several times on the butt, but it felt so good to clear out all the discomfort from the night before.

The guys also had stressful experiences and told me they were bitten all over the family jewels, and everyone could not wait to GTFO from the lake. We were itchy, tired, and 10000% fed up with the mosquitoes. I couldn't be happier leaving the lake, even though it was so so beautiful.

Hiking back down to the Nüümü Poyo junction felt like it took longer than it did coming up to the lake for some reason. My headache had also started to worsen and I started counting down the hours until I could take my next dose of Tylenol (which still hadn't kicked in...).

AllTrails indicated that this would be the hardest day of the trip; distance was similar to the previous day at around 8-ish miles, but elevation gain was over 1,300-ft and we would be going over 10,000 feet in altitude.

It took us a lot longer to get to the first pass than I had expected and planned for. My original estimate was that we'd be going about 1.5-2mph (which was accurate on average for the trip), and added two extra hours on top of that just in case. I thought we'd get to the lake and be able to set up camp by 4PM, even with our 10AM start. However, we didn't make it to the first pass until 1PM even though it was only about 2 miles from Ediza Lake.

Setting the pace was the only thing distracting me from the headache, which felt like the back of my head was getting beat like a Taiko drum, so I just kept pushing onward. Our friend was really struggling with the pace and the elevation as well. We ended up having to take a few minutes' break about every few hundred feet so he could catch up. I felt bad about pushing us to move quickly, but I didn't want to get to Thousand Island Lake too late in the day. In retrospect, I probably should've taken it easier and maybe I wouldn't have been so badly off by the end of the trip.

It also didn't help that there wasn't a lot of shade for most of the trail and we were probably not drinking enough water to make up for it.

I was really frustrated that I was struggling so hard on this trail. This section of the Nüümü Poyo trail and PCT that we did on the trip was so well-maintained, well-graded, and the trail was always pretty packed down. The switchbacks up the passes were pretty gentle with just a bit of incline at each turn, and a lot of stairs were built into the trails (which was a nice surprise!). And yet I was so breathless the whole way up and my headache was crushing. We've done so many steeper, sketchier, longer, and all-around tougher hikes at similar altitude, but nature humbled me on this trip.

Once we crested the pass, we were treated to a stunning view of Garnet Lake and Banner peak. My photos really do not do it justice.

We stopped for a quick break at the top so I could snap a few photos before we began our descent towards the lake.

There were some sections of snow that were mildly sketchy because of some exposure (meaning a drop-off on one or both sides); however, the snowy parts were pretty short and sometimes there was a way to just walk around it completely. I love feeling that crunch under my boots, so I'd purposely walk on the snow for fun. I did slip though, hah.

It was a rough trek down to the lakes' edge. Everyone was in varying degrees of unhappy, hangry, blistered, and pain. The original plan was to get to Garnet Lake sometime between 12-1PM so we could relax and have lunch. It was close to 2PM when we began our descent.

Both D and our friend were getting pretty fed up with the hike and they were ready to throw down their poles and just call it at the next shaded area on the way down. But we were so close to the lakeshore! I could see it! I also desperately needed to pee and there had been no coverage on the trail. I had been holding it since we started the ascent on the other side of the mountain and I was seeing a lot of nice-looking tree coverage near the lake.

The boys were pretty unhappy with the idea of hiking more and I was equally cranky because I couldn't just side-step behind a tree to pee like they were able to multiple times during the ascent and descent. So I told D that I was gonna go ahead by myself. They could take as long as they needed to meet me at the rock, but I was not going to wait for them to catch-up anymore.

I booked it down the hill, dropped my stuff by super nice boulder right on the lake, and high-tailed it into the trees. Finally, some relief. The rest of the team arrived, and we all finally got to take our lunch break.

It was so nice dipping our feet in the water while eating our lunch. Everyone got to refresh themselves a bit and we were all in a much better mood by the end of it. D and our friend agreed after that it was worth the extra 15 minutes of hiking to get a lakeside lunch spot!

I was still hungry after the first peanut butter tortilla sandwich and decided to eat the one I was supposed to have for the next day's lunch. I haven't decided if it was a good or bad decision based on how the rest of the trip went...

Garnet Lake might've been my favorite lake, if only because there were zero mosquitoes the whole way around the lake. It was GLORIOUS being able to take the bug nets off and not have to be constantly swatting. Hikers coming from Thousand Island Lake told us it was pretty buggy, so I decided to seize the opportunity at bug-free Garnet Lake to take my dip.

A quick change behind some trees up the hill, and I was in my swimsuit and ready to go. I didn't spend long in the water, unfortunately, because it was pretty late in the afternoon and D was anxious about getting to Thousand Island Lake in time. The water felt amazing though. It wasn't as icy as I expected, and I was able to stay in for a couple of minutes before my limbs started going numb. It actually helped a lot with the aches and pains in my body, and helped quiet down the headache a bit.

Unfortunately, not long after changing back into my clothes, I acquired a new symptom: an upset stomach. My stomach started doing the weird rumblies, like you may get before a diarrhea spell and I was starting to get really intense and uncomfortable bloating. We couldn't start for another 40 minutes because I had to run back and forth between my bathroom spots up in the trees three times to try to alleviate the discomfort. I didn't get much out and the feeling only got worse from there.

At some point, I had to just call it and hold whatever was trying to get out of my system, in. We packed up and hit the trail again. It was inching close to 4PM and the sun was a little more than halfway through the sky. I was super thankful for the long daylight hours.

If we weren't trying to squeeze this trip into 3 days, I would've loved to camp at Garnet Lake. There were nice camping spots, cozy beaches, and most importantly, no mosquitoes!!

It was sad saying goodbye and all of us dreaded the next pass we would have to ascend to get to Thousand Island Lake.

After about an hour or so since leaving our lunch rock, we finally made it to the other side of the pass. It would be all downhill from here, which I hoped would help us make up for some lost time.

My left hip was getting bruised pretty badly as we hiked. Somehow, the frame of my backpack had become elongated and the hip belt was sitting right on my hip bones instead of at the belly button. We had to make a few extra stops so I could readjust the frame; it didn't feel quite right still, but with some finagling, I got it to at least not press into my hip bones anymore. I ended up bandaging my left hip to give it some padding because the pack just kept sliding back down through the rest of the hike.

We didn't end up making up any time on the downhill because we still had to make frequent stops for our friend. He was backpacking in his climbing approach shoes instead of actual hiking shoes. Maybe approach shoes are okay to use, I don't know, but his had no tread left. He already got blisters from the first day and was also slipping more often than we were on the sections with loose dirt and sand. Good shoes are always worth it! Especially if you're carrying 30+ pounds for 3 days straight.

We finally reached Ruby Lake close to 5PM, which meant that we were "only" about 1.5 miles from the outlet of Thousand Island Lake.

The sun was getting a little low in the trees. My headache was not only back to full force, but the pounding also spread to my temples as well. The upset stomach rumblies were also still going, and it was the kind of thing where you weren't sure if you can trust your farts because you might just end up with diarrhea in your pants if you let it out. It took a stupid amount of energy to hold everything in while bumping up and down mountain passes and jumping across rocks to cross streams and carrying my big-ass pack. I'd break out in a cold sweat at times trying to not shit my pants. I was really ready to just hit the gas and get the rest of the hike over with so we could settle down at the lake and I could deal with whatever-the-fuck was going on with my body. But I couldn't just take off from the group because I was the only one with the trail map.

As we soldiered onward, I kept myself together by focusing on landmarks so I could mentally check-off where we were and how far we had left to go. It felt like absolutely forever before we reached the last lake we would pass before ending at Thousand Island: Emerald Lake.

It was so beautiful, and even with the storm raging in my body, I could still appreciate how incredibly lucky I was to be able to experience this.

I was honestly ready to drop to my knees when I finally saw the outlet of Thousand Island Lake. It still meant another 30-45 minutes before reaching the camp areas other hikers had recommended, but damn, we were so close to being done for the day.

To get to the other side of Thousand Island Lake where you're allowed to camp, you have to walk across two of the islands at the outlet of Thousand Island Lake. It's pretty cool because they're just little land bridges that are otherwise floating on the water! (Okay, maybe not floating, but you get the point).

Our poor friend when we reached the other side of the lake asked in the most hopeful yet exasperated voice, "is there where we camp?". And I felt like the bad guy for having to tell him no, because we're not allowed to camp within 1/4-mile of the outlet of the lake. He's a very quiet and reserved person, but you could definitely tell that he was completely over it at this point.

A lot of the hikers we met on the way to Garnet Lake had given us a hot tip that the best camp sites are further down the lake because there are lots of little, flat, rocky nooks higher up on the cliffs that have significantly fewer mosquitoes than camping next to the lake. What this meant for our little group was that we had to just keep hiking until we started seeing the cliffs. We passed several other camps that had been set up closer to the lake and I saw D and our friend looking very wishfully at them.

D was also near the end of his rope and asked me how much further we needed to go. My head was crushing at this point, but I was going to find these magical campsites we were told about with fewer mosquitoes. They were just as bad as Ediza at the lakeshore, and I refused to accept sleeping in mosquito weather again. I told him they could wait back if they wanted to, and I would forge on ahead and wave at them if I found something.

It was maybe about 20-30 minutes of extra hiking from the outlet of the lake, but I did find some nice rocks where it was clear that other people had camped there. They were indeed higher up, and did have fewer mosquitoes. I waved them over, and we all made it. We made it to camp! It's kind of funny in a sad way, but our friend silently and angrily threw down his poles when he caught up to us on the rocks.

We had some back and forth picking the available spots because some were too small for our tent footprint and others were too rocky for our friends' trekking pole tent to be staked down in. Someone who had set up nearby told us that there were more spaces further down the lake that were a lot bigger.

I knew that neither D nor our friend had anything left in them. I told D that I'd go check it out because the headache felt worst when I was just standing around and also because I wanted to take a couple more photos by the lake.

In retrospect, all of this running ahead and what not definitely just stressed my body out more and made things worse. I did confirm after we were done with the trail that what I was feeling was altitude sickness and probably some heat exhaustion as well. The idea of altitude sickness never crossed my mind during the hike though because I've never had issues like this before. I thought it was just the dehydration and poor sleep.

Anyway, my little jaunt added an extra 0.6-miles roundtrip and a bit of extra elevation that I really shouldn't have done.

I couldn't find these "better" campsites that were mentioned so I turned back. No one had decided yet which spot they were going to take. There was one spot that seemed big enough for our tent that our friend was also interested in. He graciously let us have the spot and took one a bit higher up on a grassier area.

I actually wanted to just start setting up, but D wanted to make sure that our friend could actually stake his tent in first in case we had to switch spots again. It was 6:30PM and the sun was starting to set behind the mountains, and I was getting frustrated just sitting around waiting for a verdict. The hunger, exhaustion, stomach issues, and headache were all compounding each other as I sat there.

Our friend was able to stake his tent, and D and I were finally able to get going. There wasn't enough dirt to stake our tent in so we just used a bunch of big rocks to hold the tent down. D's headache had come back and both of us were really hangry.

Because we were pitched up on the rocks, that meant we had to climb up and down to the lake each time we wanted water. It was probably just several hundred feet front the tent, but it felt brutal. I was completely short of breath with each step and my body just felt so heavy. I really hoped that chugging some water and eating food would fix the issue.

One of my new favorite foods to pack for backpacking are dehydrated mashed potatoes. They don't add that many calories but they taste incredible after a long day. We also rehydrated some miso packets and our bag of "dal, rice, and spinach" from Firepot. It was okay, not my favorite and it needed double the water listed on the bag to actually soften up the dal and rice.

We didn't start eating until the sun had already set behind the mountains; not super ideal to eat in the dark but the saving grace was that stronger winds had picked up and was preventing the black swirls of mosquitoes from landing on us. On the flip side, it meant that things kept getting blown away and our whole tent and sleeping bags and pads were covered in a nasty layer of dust when I checked on them. I also found my nice Icebreaker undies that I had washed clean the day before on the ground!! It must've fallen out of the ziploc bac I keep my clothes in and it was just another frustrating thing to add on top of everything else.

Now that the sun had set and there weren't any other hikers coming in, I could finally find a bathroom spot to deal with the rumblies. The rocks were pretty exposed, but there were some small clusters nearby that had...decent coverage. If you stood up, people camping near our tent could definitely see your upper body, and so could hikers on the trail down by the lake if they happened to look up.

The downside was that there was no wind on this side of the rocks, so there was a shit ton of mosquitoes. And I ran into the same predicament as I did at Ediza: after huffing for several minutes to dig a nice, 6-inch cathole, I didn't get to use it because I was getting swarmed and bitten. I also realized that I was squatting in front of a tree that was their resting place(???!!). I could see dozens of them dangling off the pine needles, lying in wait. It was scary. I went to bed with a cramping, upset stomach for the second night in a row.

We were also running low on TP. We didn't bring a full roll this time because it was so bulky, but after this trip, bringing a full roll is now a non-negotiable. I finished the leftover, quarter-roll that I had brought that evening and D had only a bit more extra in his pack. Moreover, I realized that I had mistakenly used the clean trash bag I kept for holding extra trash bags as the dirty trash bag. So I was out of trash bags for dirty tissues for the next day. It wasn't a huge deal, and we were already using the used, dehydrated meal bags to hold other kinds of trash, but they're always kind of gunky because of the foods and sauces. They were also pretty full and hard to zip up already. Sigh.

It was probably around 9:30PM or a bit later before we were finally able to settle into our sleeping bags. I took my meds and crossed my fingers that I could make it through the night this time.

Next up

You can read the next leg of the adventure in Day 3: The High Trail.