It was another beautiful Saturday in Mammoth Lakes. As most of the population of greater Los Angeles arrived in town the previous night, Shannon and I had concocted a plan to do a little trail run up in the Twenty Lakes Basin, starting with an ascent of North Peak. After getting breakfast in town, we headed north for Tioga Pass, turning off onto the dirt road to Saddlebag Lake and parking in the campground parking lot.

Because we intended to run most of the day, I only carried my cell phone and don’t have the high quality camera photos I usually do.

After parking in the campground parking lot and crossing the dam we were greeted by… a lot of rocks. So many rocks, in fact, that it made the task of running this trail nearly impossible. So we settled into a brisk walk around the west shore of Saddlebag Lake.

First views of the impressive North Peak from the southeast. It was quite cloudy today, and we weren’t sure if it was likely to thunderstorm or not. The trail improved near Greenstone Lake and we were able to jog a bit, but the altitude proved another obstacle to our attempts to make rapid upwards progress. As we started climbing up the creek from Conness Lakes we were greeted by even more rocks and slowed to a walk again climbing over and around them.

We enjoyed the scenic Conness Lakes with a few other visitors before following a faint use trail up the south slope of North Peak from Lake 10749.

The impressive North Face of Mount Conness and the Conness Glacier behind us.

The climb was a bit steep and a bit sandy, but well within the confines of a class 1 rating. Before long, we gained the southwest slope of North Peak and hopped over medium-sized boulders to the summit. It took us about 3 hours to climb from the trailhead to the summit. On the final climb we passed a couple of people including one guy wearing just flip flops. He said he had forgotten his hiking shoes.

The view north from the summit, with Matterhorn Peak at roughly center.

The view south/southwest from the summit. Half Dome is visible far off in the distinct, as is nearby Roosevelt Lake.

Looking south/southwest from the summit over the Conness Lakes and Mount Dana.

One more view north into Yosemite and the Hoover Wilderness. After a short stay on the summit we headed back down for the saddle.

Mount Conness from the slopes of North Peak. We made it back to Conness Lakes uneventfully and stopped to soak our feet and have a snack before heading back down. While we had origin

North Peak from down lower, just above Greenstone Lake, with a family of ducks swimming around in the creek.

While we had originally planned to explore some of the other trails and lakes in the area, the climb wore us out a bit more than we expected, so we just headed straight back the way we came.

A few more shots of North Peak from near Greenstone Lake. The impressive north face on the right side is roughly 1,000’ high.

We got back to our car around 2 and got in and headed for Mammoth. While the rain had spared us all day so far, we weren’t convinced it would continue to do so. We had to pack up our AirBnB tonight to move to a new one, so it was nice to get back in the late afternoon.