From Las Vegas we drove across Death Valley to Lone Pine on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. One of the staff at the Las Vegas REI had recommended backpacking trails in the Cottonwood Lakes area. However, when we got to the visitor center we found out that the road into that area had not opened for the summer yet. And on top of that, most of the trails were still covered in snow (they're over 10,000 feet). So we camped for a night at a campground halfway up the Onion Lake road and in the morning we did a day hike into the Golden Trout lakes. The highest lake is about 11,000 feet and as predicted, there was still a lot of snow up there.
Once we got down, we drove around the south end of the Sierras, a beautiful drive through a variety of scenery. The green meadows and hillsides scattered with oak trees are lovely. We stopped overnight at a KOA at Isabella Lake and the next day continued up the west side of the Sierras to Sequoia National Park where we stayed at Buckeye campground and ate in Three Rivers at the Gateway Inn on a wonderful terrace overlooking the river. See if you can spot the rainbow trout in the first photo.
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