For our annual Father’s Day backpacking trip, we visited Shealor Lakes just off of Highway 88 near Kirkwood. It was a fairly short hike in terms of distance, but had a decent amount of elevation change considering my little one wasn’t much help with carrying his own pack. I’m guessing I was carrying close to 100 pounds of gear on the way back.

For the lake being so close to the main road, we were surprised at how few people were there. We nearly had the lake/surrounding area all to ourselves to explore. The kids loved every minute of the trip and already want to go back.

I had originally planned to just take a sunset photo of the waterfall across the lake from our camp, but the clouds never materialized there. So I made a mad rush up the hill behind me (I sure got winded quickly at that elevation). The view looking out towards Desolation Wilderness sure was spectacular!

Here is the group that made it out this year: