This weekend was originally supposed to be Dani’s first backpacking trip, our destination being Honeymoon Lake, west of Bishop below Pine Creek Pass and accessed via a steep, mostly-unshaded trail. After Chris’ and Carter’s difficulties at Tyee Lakes, a relatively easier trail than Pine Creek, we looked around for an alternate, available site for the same weekend and Hilton Lakes popped up – we’d need to go in Thursday instead of Friday, but the trail looked very doable and the lakes basin was beautiful in the pictures we found online. So, we met up in Wrightwood at about 7:00am, beginning our long drive northward shortly thereafter – getting gas in Adelanto and lunch in Bishop meant we didn’t arrive at the trailhead above Rock Creek Lake until just before noon, and by the time we got organized, it was almost 12:30pm when we actually hit the trail. After an initial climb up a pair of short switchbacks, the trail runs northward up the west side of Little Lakes Valley, slowly losing a net 250′ of elevation over two miles. Mule trains frequent this route and, as a result, the trail is littered with mule and horse poop and has been ground to beach-like sand as well – not the best combination for walking, especially with full packs on a warm day. Jane had done most of the meal planning, and we had loads of items that would be backcountry delicacies – fresh eggs, hash browns, rice, and a huge bag of bacon bits, to name a few – Chris carried the large bear canister (we had that plus two small ones between us), and his pack tipped the scale at 41 lbs., the biggest load he’s carried on any trip at any age to anywhere. In fact, Dani’s was the lightest pack at about 32 lbs., so we all were pretty heavily burdened. Following the two-mile north-trending run, the trail makes a U-turn southward (“The Turn”) before climbing northward again to a low bench, then bending westward for a two-mile climb to a saddle on the valley’s western ridge. It was very warm and dusty here, and views were pretty non-existent as we made our way up through sparse forest – on the map, it didn’t look like a long way, but this definitely felt like the most endless stretch of the whole walk in. Eventually, we reached the top of the saddle and began looking for a use trail that would allow us to cut west across the slope and bypass the elevation loss and subsequent elevation regain had we stayed on the main trail (which drops northwest into the lower Hilton Lakes basin, requiring one to climb back up to the upper basin on a different trail). We started west at the end of the second switchback below the saddle but immediately encountered a wall of brush that forced us further down the hill before we found a way through it – once across the brushy gully, we picked our way west pretty easily, eventually finding the trail coming up from below, which we followed southward up toward Hilton Lake #3 (the basin’s lakes are numbered roughly north to south, with Davis Lake at the mouth of the valley generally regarded as Hilton Lake #1). Though in decent condition, this trail was quite steep and studded with high steps – Chris’ big load had begun to wear on him by this time, and he was the slowest in getting up the hill. Once at Lake #3, we continued following the trail along and above the lake’s western shoreline, crossing over a low ridge and dropping down through a lovely meadow before climbing a short hill up to Lake #4, our intended destination – we’d passed several tents at Lake #3 (belonging to a Boy Scout troop, it turns out), but there was absolutely no one at Lake #4, save a handful of young day-hiking fishermen (said Scouts) who were leaving as we arrived. The lake was magnificent, with the northern tip of Mt. Huntington towering above its southern end, Patricia Peak to its east, and Peak 12,508′ to its west. We found a nice camping area on the west shore, Carter and Dani choosing a tent site near the water and us picking a nice spot a little higher up. After setting up camp and watching Carter fish for a while, we convened at our common kitchen locale for mac-n-cheese (which turned out awful, for some reason – either overcooked or undercooked, it was truly horrible) and herbal tea (one of the items Chris and Carter had resolved to bring after cold nights at Tyee Lakes). We hit the sack not too long after sunset, looking forward to a full day of exploring the basin tomorrow and expecting fresh fish for dinner…