"Palisades Glacier hike - Eastern Sierra Nevada" California Travelogue by bruingirl

We started the hike at 6:30am to beautiful blue skies and the sun shining on our backs, knowing that we wouldn't see our motel room again for 13 hours! We were a bit concerned about thunderstorms in this area the night before, but when we woke up in Big Pine, we were greeted with what seemed like perfect weather!

Hiking into the mountain

It was so beautiful and peaceful that early in the morning. There was no wind and the air was crisp. As we walked along, we could smell the sage growing wild along the path.

First Fall

This is the first of two waterfalls on this particular trail. All around us were Jeffrey pine trees and still some manzanitas at this elevation (which won't be for long!). Unfortunately, this picture doesn't really capture how spectacular this fall was in terms of the power and beauty of it.

Temple Crag doesn't look quite imposing yet....

Halfway to First Lake, we actually ran into other human beings who were gracious enough to take our only picture that we have together! :) We were surrounded by aspen and Jeffrey pine trees. The large, imposing peak in the background is Temple Crag, at 12,976'. If you're into alpine climbing, that's one you really want to attempt.

First Lake

They sure got creative with the names on these lakes! The lake has the most breath-taking view! The color of the water was unbelievable! This picture hardly does it any justice! Because most of these lakes are fed by glacier water, it creates the milky aquamarine color from the various minerals. We could hardly believe our eyes when we took it in! It truly was gorgeous!

postcard perfect!

This is why I love hiking so much in the Sierras! LOOK at this! Does it get any prettier than this?!?!? We had been hiking for about 3hrs and had another 3 to go before we even got to the glacier at this point.

Definitely gaining more elevation....

It was nice to have a leisurely walk through here. There weren't any big pine trees anymore. I think by this point we must have been at about 10,500' or so. There were some scattered wildflowers here and there. Primose monkey flowers were abundant at this meadow...at least I think that's what they were.

Sam Mack meadow

From here on up, we were faced with a series of fun-filled switchbacks which seemed to go on forever!!! This area is the Sam Mack meadow and by this point, we noticed dark clouds starting to roll in and the temperature dropped considerably lower.