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spring camping with a toddler

Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 10:44 pm
by haji
I'm trying to find a good place to take my 3 year old son camping in the middle of April. Since there is so little snow this year I thought we might be able to get into the mountains a bit. We would like to hike in a mile or maybe two and camp near a river or creek. He's been car camping a few times before so we are going to try and get "out" a little further this time if we can.
I was thinking about camping near dinkey dome. I remember this as a beautiful place from whitewater kayaking trips.
Also I always liked the kaweah drainage in spring, but I don't know of any good camping spots there other than fee areas.
Any ideas are appreciated. thanks

Re: spring camping with a toddler

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 11:48 am
by maverick
Hi Haji,

Welcome to HST! You may be a little early. Read the NWS forecast, 10 inches with
this series of storms, and an even colder system coming in next week. http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php ... glossary=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: spring camping with a toddler

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:50 pm
by haji
Thanks for the heads up.
It would be great if we got a bunch of snow.
But I looked at the recent cdec snow survey and the snowpack is like 15% or something. Its going to take a lot of snow to do much.

Re: spring camping with a toddler

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 12:15 pm
by JosiahSpurr
TRY FOR Golden Trout Wilderness from the parking lot (10,000 feet) at end of Horseshoe Meadows Road. This is a left turn off the road to Mt. Whitney. Just north is Mt. Langley (14,000 plus), the southern-most fourteener. I called the Inyo Natl Forest office in Bishop and it probably won't be open in April, so hopefully you can plan the trip in May. At that height, it's a good bet for getting to snow in a low snow year !!

Here's a tip. Don't go all the way to the parking lot (where there are bathrooms and campgrounds). First, get a wilderness permit (the inter-agency office is a few miles south of Lone Pine). Second, if it is available, park in the 2-car "lot" exactly where Cottonwood Creek goes under the road. It is at the end of a long, flat straight section and before the road swings left and starts going up hill. Between 9,640 and 9,650 feet. Employees of Thatcher School's Golden Trout Camp park in this "lot". The stretch of Cottonwood Creek from the road to the Camp is GORGEOUS. It's a mix of swampy with willows, and forest, and exposed rock towards higher elevations (to the right going upstream). There's trout in the creek. The trail is distinct, it is on the 7.5 min. topo map. At one point, it forks and crosses the creek 10 feet later (this is the way to Cottonwood Lakes). Otherwise, it stays on the east side of the Creek and also goes towards Golden Trout Camp and theoretically it goes up and over to Little Cottonwood Creek (which has a beautiful little meadow that probably isn't visited frequently, and you can hike up to the Sierra Crest and look into Carroll Creek which is a very interesting rocky area). Happy trails !!!!!