Skip The Yosemite Crowds And See Eight Alpine Lakes On This Underrated Eastern Sierra Trail

A whopping 4 million people cram into Yosemite National Park each year. It's easy to see why: This is the home of the vertiginous Half Dome and the roaring Nevada Fall. Basically, it's bucket list stuff for outdoors enthusiasts. But what a lot of folks don't know is that you can skip the crowds by venturing to other awesome places in the surrounding Sierra Nevada. There are the stunning views of the high Tioga Road, for example, or the highest drive-to campground in California just to the east of the park. Alternatively, there's also the Little Lakes Valley Trail, which offers a similarly jaw-dropping mountain experience with a fraction of the footfall.

How can you guarantee there's a fraction of the footfall, you ask? For one, the trailhead for the Lakes Valley is located on the harder-to-reach eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, some 1.25 hours' drive from the eastern entrance to Yosemite. Secondly, there's a strict overnight permit requirement that limits the number of backpacking hikers on the route, with passes often selling out six months in advance.

Your best bet for getting to the trail is to head up what's arguably California's most iconic desert and mountain highway: The gorgeous U.S. Route 395. You'll find parking at the trailhead around 45 minutes' drive out of the town of Bishop. For fly-in travelers, the nearest airport is the Mammoth Yosemite Airport, which sits just off Highway 395 about 30 minutes north of the trailhead. Just be sure to check ahead for any road closures — the Rock Creek Road that leads to the parking lot is sometimes off-limits throughout the winter.

There are jagged mountains, snow-mantled ridges, sweeps of wildflower meadows, and all the other things that the highest reaches of the Sierra Nevada are known for on this route. But if there's one natural feature that really defines the Little Lakes Valley Trail, it surely must be the lakes themselves! There are eight of them in total, strung out between 10,200 feet and 11,200 feet above sea level.

It all begins with Mack Lake, which starts the hike in real style by offering up instant visions of the soaring massif on the horizon. From there, the path leads onto a slight downward incline to Marsh Lake, where the waters are hemmed in by patches of reeds. Then comes Heart Lake, where the grassy banks provide the perfect place to rest up and relax.

The final two lakes (after Box Lake and Long Lake) are a rugged showing of proper high Sierra backcountry. You first drop by Chickenfoot Lake, with its boulder-strewn shoreline, under the gaze of craggy Mount Morgan, which looms tall to the east. From there, you climb to the edge of the Morgan Pass to reach the Gem Lakes, a series of cold alpine waters that glimmer a bright blue under the granite summits of Bear Creek Spire and Mount Dade.

The most popular part of Yosemite National Park is the famed Yosemite Valley, a 7-mile-long stretch that's home to meadows, mountains, and waterfalls alike. It gets the lion's share of the visitors and congestion can be a big issue throughout the peak summer months. Not so in the Little Lakes Valley! Here, folks often remark just how uncrowded things are. As one former hiker put it on AllTrails: "Gorgeous views the entire way. Started at [7 a.m.] the parking lot was almost empty and the weather was 48 degrees with a slight breeze. Turned into the perfect hiking day."

One way to ensure you get that proper isolation feeling is to plan a backpacking trip into the Little Lakes Valley. Although you'll have to jostle with other overnight hikers for an Inyo National Forest wilderness permit, the reward is a chance to wake up surrounded by the Sierra Nevada before the stream of day hikers hits the trail.

Camping–wise, there are walk-in campgrounds peppered around the Gem Lakes right at the end of the trail, as well as around the more secluded Chickenfoot Lake, located a short detour off the main route. As for timing, the main hiking season usually begins sometime between late May and early July, with limited backpacking permits from May 1 to November 1.