Cottonwood Lakes Trail

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The Cottonwood Lakes Trailhead offers hikers an excellent starting point to explore areas/destinations such as the Cottonwood Lakes Basin, the Golden Trout Wilderness, Mt. Langley, Cirque Peak and the Pacific Crest Trail. Here are a few pics of the area: Cottonwood Lakes Trails Trip Report, August 17 2013.

Here is an example of an early season two day trip. When this itinerary was planned, we did not have current snow conditions for Old Army Pass and would not be carrying crampons or ice axes on our trip.

Day 1 (Saturday)

11:00 AM – Arrive @ Cottonwood Lakes Trail Head
- Hike Cottonwood Lakes Trail Head -to- Cottonwood Lake #3 (light blue line)
  - Mileage: 6 miles || Duration: 2-3 hrs || Elevation Change: +1500 ft
2:00 PM – Setup campsite near CWL #3
4:00 PM – Optional late afternoon hike. Some options:
- hike towards CWL #6 or Old Army Pass (OA) to assess snow situation

Day 2 (Sunday)

Option 1: Horseshoe Meadows Hike
- 6:00 AM – Pack up camp
- 7:00 AM – Hike back to car
  - Mileage: 6 miles || Duration: 2 hours || | Elevation Change: -1500 ft
- 9:00 AM – Move cars to Horseshoe Meadows Day Use area.
- 9:15 AM – Hike Horseshoe Meadows -to- Cottonwood Pass -to-Trail Pass Loop (pink line)
  - Mileage: 10 || Duration: 5 hrs hiking time (rough guess) || Elevation Change: +2250 ft
    - If conditions allow it, we can visit Trail Peak (elev. 11,605 ft) as a side trip
      - Side trip doesn’t add any mileage, but adds 800 ft of climbing
      - ‘Trail Peak Detour‘ is marked by a black line
- 1:00 PM – Finish hike, lunch in Lone Pine
Option 2: Lakes Exploration (with full packs)
- 3:00 AM – Pack up camp (only if we want to watch sunrise from High Lake, if not delay schedule 3 hrs)
- 4:00 AM – Start hiking
- Lake Exploration Hike (orange line)
  - Total Mileage: 10.8 || Duration: 6-7 hours || Elevation Change: +1252, -2260
    - Details
      - CW Lake #3 -to- Long Lake -to- High Lake (watch sunrise?)
        
        2.5 || +536, -137
      - High Lake -to- Long Lake -to- South Fork Lakes (cross country) -to- Cirque Lake
        
        2.4 || +262, -638
      - Cirque Lake -to- CWL Trail Junction
        
        2.6 || +220, -865
      - CWL Trail Junction to CWL Trailhead
        
        3.3 || 234, -621
- 11:00 AM – Finish Hike, lunch in Lone Pine

Option 3: Mt. Langley (14,026 ft), only if snow/ice is not dangerous (not likely)
- 5:00 AM – Start hiking
  - Cottonwood Lake # 3 -to- Mt. Langley Summit (14,026 ft) -to- Cottonwood TH
    - I have mapped out three possible routes:
    - New Army Pass is marked by the red line.
      - 13 miles (camp -to- summit -to- camp)
    - Old Army Pass is marked by the green line.
      - 7.5 miles
    - The snow chute near Lake #6 is marked by the purple line.
      - 6.5 miles
- 3:00 PM – Return to camp, pack up gear
- 4:00 – Hike CWL #3 to CWL Trailhead
  - Mileage: 6 miles || Duration: 2 hours || Elevation Change: -1500 ft
- 6:00 PM – Drive home