Little Lakes Valley, located in the John Muir Wilderness, is a place we’ve visited many times. We’ve caught countless little fish (literally) from the the valley’s creeks and lakes, but nothing quite beats the views of the surrounding towering peaks.
Little Lakes Valley, located in the John Muir Wilderness, is one of the easiest ways to experience the High Sierra. Mosquito Flats Trailhead is one of the highest trailheads in the Sierra, with the parking area at an elevation of 10,200 feet. The Little Lakes Valley trail heads south from the parking area and back into a valley surrounded by 13,000-foot peaks. It goes by countless little alpine lakes and meadows for 4 mile with relatively little elevation gain.
It’s been a few years since our last visit to this picturesque valley, so we packed our fishing rods and made our way to Mosquito Flats for an easy day hike. We arrived at 8:30 AM on a Wednesday and the uppermost parking was already full, so we parked in the overflow lot. This is an extremely popular trail so make sure to get here early if you want a decent parking spot. Our plan for the day was to go on and off the trail exploring the different lakes and hopefully hook up to some fish.
There’s one steep hill at the beginning of the trail that always gets the hearting pumping a bit (especially at over 10,000 ft), but once it’s crested it’s easy going and the views just get better. The first time we broke away from the main trail, we headed down to the inlet of Mack Lake and walked along Rock Creek up to Marsh Lake. We enjoyed catching quite a few little brookies and rainbows (they’re literally little in Little Lakes Valley), but the scenery always steals the show here.
We rejoined the main trail at Marsh Lake and continued on to Heart Lake. This is a popular place for groups with kids to stop because it’s only a mile from the car and one of the prettiest spots in the entire valley. Heart Lake is unique because it has multiple inlets: one from Ruby Lake to the west, one from a small tarn to the north, and also Rock Creek flowing down from Box Lake.
We kept walking because there were so many people hanging out around Heart Lake. The trail goes by Box Lake on its way to Long Lake where we stopped to eat some lunch at the outlet. We had great views of Mt. Dade and Mt. Abbot while we ate.
After eating lunch and catching some really small rainbows out of Long Lake we headed off trail to Big Fish Lake. It was a short hike up and over a hill to the east of Long Lake. We spotted some decent sized brookies (8-10″) but they were picky. Tyler managed to catch one at the other end of the lake but we didn’t manage to get a picture.
After fishing for a while with very little action we walked back down to Box Lake and fished the inlet. We saw just a couple fish, but Alyssa managed to catch a small one on a midge emerger.
Little Lakes Valley is a perfectly picturesque representation of the High Sierra. It’s easily accessible but because of that is heavily used, and in our opinion, has become even more overcrowded over the years. Its definitely a must see, but beware of crowds. The further you hike, the less crowded it will be!
