Cottonwood Lake #1 via Cottonwood Lakes Trail(edit)

Sights to See

• Cottonwood Lake Number One
• Cottonwood Lake Number Three
• Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead

Rate this Hike

★★★★★


Temecula Dan 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Solo day hiked 5/18/25 – Drove up Horseshoe Meadows Road with a plan to day hike out to Muir Lake and then spend the night back at the Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead before heading up Mt Whitney. I’ve slept at Horseshoe Meadows several times over the last few years before going up Langley, Mallory, Irvine, Whitney and some of the lower peaks and it seems to put the finishing touch on the 2-3 week acclimation process. “Climb high” to 11-11.5k feet and then “sleep lower” at 10k feet. Aside from having ideal altitudes for this benefit, the John Muir and Golden Trout Wilderness areas surrounding the Horseshoe Meadows campgrounds are beautiful and quite scenic. After driving all the way up Horseshoe Meadows Road on this trip, the last gate was locked which is about half a mile from the campgrounds. The Inyo County Roads website indicated that the road was open so this was a big surprise. There were other cars at the parking lot adjacent to the gate with a few fellow hikers equally surprised and discussing “plan B.” I decided to walk the half mile past the gate, see if anyone was using the campground and then head out to Muir Lake on the Cottonwood Lakes Trail. Parts of the trail had hillside snow to traverse but nothing impassible. After reaching the start of the Muir Lake Trail, the snow was completely covering the unbroken trail. This just meant more time carefully navigating the trail, most of which was intuitive and aided by an occasional cairn. The weather was great so a little extra time spent putting in an accurate track to the lake ended up being a fun challenge. Muir Lake was still frozen over but just starting the thawing process with Mt Langley serving as a nice snow-topped back drop. Once back at the trailhead, I decided to pack up enough gear and practice “dispersed camping” for the night instead of driving down the hill to find another campground which just added to the adventure. I had too much firewood and gear in the car to sleep in it and had to find a bear locker for the food. In the morning, there was one other party with the same camping idea and a few thers sleeping in cars down the road. Not sure why the gate was closed to begin with and why there isn’t a bear box at the locked gate with backpacking permits being issued. A great pre-Whitney adventure before heading down to a reserved campsite at Whitney Portal. Logged 12.5 mi /20.1 km & 1477 ft / 450.2 m gain with Gaia
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

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