Backpacking 2004 - Upper Twin Lake

This year, I decided to organize a trip for people from work.  Several people who wanted to come wound up with scheduling conflicts, so it was just Henry, Tony, Tony's daughter Danielle, and me.  Henry picked me up Monday morning and we met Tony in Shaver Lake.  We had breakfast together and then made our way to the Sample Meadow trailhead.  The trail from Sample Meadow to Upper Twin Lake is rather short and easy.  It only has maybe 600 feet of elevation gain and is a couple of miles long.  I chose this trip thinking that it would be good for first time backpackers or anyone out of shape (myself included! ;).  That worked out good as Tony brough his 8-year old daughter who had never been backpacking before. 

We made it to Upper Twin in under 3 hours.  I had been there numerous times before but not within the last 10 years or so.  The forest service has been busy since that time...  We selected a suitable spot and 'used' it.  I'd like to note that we didn't camp there.  We were backpacking which is definitely different from camping.  Hence, my sleeping arrangement seemed appropriate, though had I been camping it clearly would have been prohibited ;)  We got settled in, ate dinner, and called it an early night. 

The next morning, we got up, ate breakfast, and Henry and I headed off to climb Kaiser Peak.  We started out hiking the trail to George Lake.  We stopped there for a few minutes to take some pictuers and pressed on.  The next portion was pretty much cross country up a saddle until we caught up with the Kaiser Loop Trail.  The views were excellent, as is the case with the other high Sierra peaks I've climbed.