Chocolate Peak, Aug. 13, 2019

After our hike the previous day we sat around the camp fire and contemplated our plans for the next day: Drive home right away or do a little hike in the morning?

We decided to wait for breakfast with the decision. At breakfast everyone felt fine. A little sore and tired maybe, but not enough to miss out on another hike. Chocolate Peak is just about 2.5 miles from the South Lake parking area right along the trail to Bishop Pass. It does not stick out much here surrounded by the high mountains, but it’s 11,682 feet.

We quickly reached Long Lake where the mosquitoes seemed to be especially abundant. All the overnight hikers coming down the trail were wearing head nets. We held our breath, so not to swallow mosquitoes (yes, they swarmed that dense) and made our way to the Ruwau Lake turnoff. Then we climbed to Ruwau Lake and on almost until the trail started to head down to Chocolate Lakes. Here we found a cairned use trail leading us to the top of Chocolate Peak.

Mosquitoes!

The views of the South Fork Bishop Creek valley with all it’s lakes was amazing. There was still so much snow everywhere. He had some snacks and took pictures before starting our return trip via the Chocolate Lakes. The trail along the lakes is not maintained and significantly rougher than the trail up from Long Lake. Walking past all the lakes and with all the healthy green growth was very pleasant… except for those times when we got swarmed by mosquitoes again. We did see lots of decent size fish in the lakes.

Once at the trucks we were looking forward to the awesome burgers at Burger Barn in Bishop. To our great disappointment it was there off day and we had to settle with just some regular burgers. After lunch Jack went straight home while we stopped in Big Pine at the market to take showers.

Hike stats: 7.2 miles, 1950 ft elevation gain

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