High Sierra Topix

Headed up to camp at French camp near mammoth next weekend. I’m trying to find a couple of off the beaten path areas to explore with the wife and dog. I’ll probably try and take a look up towards Tamarack lake out of Rock creek and was looking at a XC hike up to Hammil lake out of Mammoth Lakes. Hammil looks pretty shallow on the topo so was hoping for some fishing intel. Any other ideas for off trail or low use trails to lakes or peaks in the area. Looking for 6 to 8 miles and no more than 3000’ gain.

I have not been to Hammill but the DFW online fishing guide lists it as having (self sustaining) brookies. In this sort of setting (elevation, etc.) this usually means abundant fish but with a fairly small maximum size. A shallower lake tends to favor somewhat bigger fish because of better food production and because such lakes may occasionally winter kill, reducing the population. On the other hand, the usual conditions for lakes growing large brookies are lakes with more wooded surroundings (Hammill has rockbound, somewhat bare surroundings) where it would seem like there is more decaying vegetation etc. to make for somewhat anoxic bottom conditions that reduce spawning habitat (ie low but finite spawning potential is connected with lower population density and bigger brookies). One way or another Hammill does appear to have fish based on the DFW map and it is sort of an off-the-beaten track destination in an otherwise fairly heavily used basin. Tamarack out of Rock Creek is off the beaten path too, but I have been there and it had lots of small (stunted) brookies. For your hike(s) it sounds to me that you are looking at dayhike possibilities instead of overnight? This makes a difference in planning because you have to consider round trip, rather than one-way distances (although Tamarack seems to push or exceed the round trip limit). I haven't been to Deer Lakes (I recall WD was there fairly recently though) but these would seem to be "off the beaten path" for the Mammoth area, although I think the one-way distance is something like 6 mi.

Thanks for the reply. Tamarack is certainly at the end of my wife's range but at 2k elevation gain it seems doable. We'll head up to Hammil just to poke around and give you a report.