Red Castle Lakes + Wilson Peak

Day one

We hiked in starting mid-afternoon on Saturday from the China Meadows trailhead. Tory caries Karis Osprey pack, and she his. Fairly flat 10-mile hike, maybe a total of 800 ft elevation gain. The trail was very muddy, with lots of minor walk arounds avoiding the deepest of the mud. Lots of rocks to hop around too. Generally a very easy hike in. We initially found a camp just off the trail by lower red castle lake, but while scavenging for firewood found an awesome camp up higher:

Nice creek nearby for water, a flat spot for the tent, and a three-pole contraption to hang food on that someone constructed. Honestly might be one of the better camps we ever found. Temps were cold especially after the sun went down. 

Backpack meals for dinner. We brought enough for three or four days so nobody went hungry. Had a mice small fire.

Slept mostly okay, zipped bags together with Kari, which likely helped with the cold but wasn’t super comfortable with all my need to turn. Pulled me off the pad all night too, very annoying.

Day two

Woke around 7 ish, took our time thinking we wouldn’t be hiking much. The idea was to possibly hike Mt Wilson, but there was snow everywhere and I didn’t expect we’d be able to make it very high. So we started for the upper Red Castle lake and would make decisions as we went. Well of course we never ran into enough snow to stop us so we ended up summiting:

The top is 13,018 according to the maps, I recorded 13,044. From the upper lake we bolder hopped the west side of the lake, up to the obvious pass, then up the western ridge line. Mostly easy scrambling, avoiding any class 5 moves. I said no class 5 moves on snow. A hard fast rule, and we didn’t need to. 

There wasn’t a lot of beta on the route, but we did hear that people do it as a loop. Checking the maps there was only one optional way off that wasn’t the way we came. That’s the northeast ridgeline. Looking over the edge it’s pretty steep but looked like we just needed to make it down a few hundred feet before it started to flatten out. Kari agreed with the decision so we started down. It got steep quick and didn’t let up. The snow made it pretty sketchy:

Yes, we went down that.

I said during the time that it might have been a top-five worst decision, and I was continually hoping we didn’t get cliffed out. Thankfully we didn’t, nobody slipped and we avoided being on the news. 

We made our way down to Smiths Fork Pass and back to camp. 8 ish miles total which is more than I’d anticipated. Tory had ideas on hiking out that same day but crap was I beat. Turns out so were he and Tegan. So we stayed another night at Awesome Camp. More backpacker meals and a bit of whiskey for me. Slightly warmer night, slightly worse night of sleep.  Woke early, but rested and hiked the 10 miles out just before sunrise. The chilly morning start meant walking on frozen mud so the trip out was even easier than the way in. Lighter packs and downhill help too I suspect. 

All in all a good trip. Kids are much faster than Kari and I and I’m so happy for it. Glad they still want to join us in these adventures.