Young Lakes

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We've been on all the famous hikes through Yosemite Valley but this was the first time to be outside the valley and in Yosemite Wilderness. We backpacked out of Tuolumne Meadows for what we planned to be a two night trip. We hiked to Young Lakes via the Dog Lake trail, and came back via the Glen Aulin trail.
The Dog Lake trail starts out pretty steep for the first 1.5 miles or so until you get to the junction to either go to Dog Lake (which we did not) or continue on towards Young Lakes.

As we continued the trail began to flatten out and it was some easy hiking. Not only was it easy it was one of the most beautiful trails I've ever hiked. Lots of creek crossing with a couple open meadows and the mountains in the background made the hiking even easier.

We got to within .5 miles of where the Glen Aulin trail and the dog lake trail meet and set up camp. Our plan was to camp at the lakes but thanks to some friendly hikers they advised us to camp there due to the mosquitoes being so bad by the lakes, and the mosquitoes were pretty bad everywhere. But other then those pesky little blood eaters it was just about perfect. The temperature was just about right with highs in the low 80's and lows in the mid 50's.

The view from our where we camped was better then the lakes, with a beautiful panoramic mountain range right outside our tent.

We spent the night and the next day took our small day packs up to Young Lakes. We hung out at lower Young lake, I swam just a little (there was still snow melting right into the lake so it was pretty cold). We made a quick trek up to middle lake but came back down because the mosquitoes were eating us alive up there, lower lake wasn't too bad.

When we got back to camp around 4pm we decided to just leave because, 1. I forgot the tooth brush and we were itching to brush our teeth, 2. I left the tooth paste in the car and didn't want to come back to my truck being torn apart by a bear.

We decided to turn the trail into a loop by heading back down the Glen Aulin trail, that was a mistake. It would have been a even bigger mistake if we came up that way. It wasn't that the trail was horrible, it just wasn't nearly as beautiful as the Dog lake trail. If you are hiking to Young Lakes, go up and back via the Dog Lake trail.

With Amy being a speed racer when it comes to hiking downhill and setting the pace, we made it back to the car in about 3 hours, thankful no bears ruined my truck and glad to have clean teeth again!

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Photos

Lambert Dome
check out the guys climbing the face!