For years, we’ve celebrated J’s birthday with a Sierra backpacking trip. Almost every time, the longest and toughest climb inadvertently falls on his birthday. Case in point: summer 2017, when we found ourselves hiking up from the JMT to Piute Pass on his birthday after an epically wet winter, resulting in no less than a dozen significant and exhausting stream crossings on one day. That was just one example of a long string of birthdays spent trudging up to some elusive thin-aired destination.

We’ve tried to correct this by designing a more leisurely itinerary — at least for his actual birthday — but it appears we are not meant to embark on such walks in the park. Take the time in 2021, when rather than hike over Lamarck Col to base camp at Darwin Bench for a few days, we decided not to hike back out over Lamarck Col, instead changing our route, adding 25 or 30 miles, and replacing sluggishness with brisk exertion.

I dare say that in 2022 we accomplished our goal and achieved a low-milage, medium-effort, high-reward birthday trip. It went something like this…

We arrived a couple of days early to acclimatize to the higher elevations we’d encounter on this hike, camping a couple of nights in the Bishop Canyon area of the John Muir Wilderness and day hiking to the lovely Chocolate Lakes starting at South Lake and ascending toward Long Lake and Ruwau Lake. There were wildfires burning in the area and we were somewhat impacted by smoke on our day hike. Fortunately, by the time our backpacking trip started the smoke had shifted away from the area.

The backpacking route started at Tyee Lakes trailhead. From there, we hiked up to the largest of the namesake lakes, camping just above 11,000’.

On day 2, we hiked over Table Mountain to about 11,600’, soaking in absolutely jaw-dropping views of Evolution Valley before descending toward George Lake. From there, we followed the trail (almost) to Lake Sabrina, turning south toward Blue Lake, where we camped for two nights.

A carpet of lupine near Sailor Lake

On day 3, we headed up the middle fork of Bishop Creek and putzed around many beautiful mini lake basins under intermittent rain, visiting Midnight Lake, Hungry Packer Lake, and Sailor Lake — each with its own unique character and backdrop of scenery. In better weather we might have continued exploring the countless lakes and tarns that dot this landscape, accessed via endless out-and-backs or out-and-overs. Instead, we took this trip to be an appetizer for a future return visit.

On our final day, we hiked out to Lake Sabrina and hitchhiked back to our starting trailhead.