Pinecrest Hike to Cleo's Bath

Today I took a few girls from church up to Pinecrest, CA to go past the lake and see the famed Cleo's bath. Was it worth it? Yes and no....

I have to say I was disappointed that the trail was not marked very clearly. At some points there were rock cairns that helps the hiker find their way, but they were spread out pretty far. When you're walking across smooth granite, I think that you need a little more help. Maybe I'm being to harsh because it's Pinecrest and I thought it would be better maintained. It's not that you couldn't find your way, but we definitely had to double back multiple times when an apparent trail dead-ended.

Then there was the final leg up the rocks to the pools. This one was totally our fault, because we didn't look around when we were halfway up the climb and notice the cairns that were actually there. If we had, we would have saved ourselves a pretty scary near-vertical climb. I've done a many hikes of the past few years with decent inclines and all, but this was seriously rock climbing that we did. But like I said, we should have seen the alternate route halfway up. (If you ever do this hike, listen! When you get close to the pools, you start ascending and see a little cave on  your right made from two granite slabs. Then you go straight past that to climb up the granite, which has formed a "v" that you have to shimmy up. After about 20 feet or so, there are a few little trees. Look to your right and see the rock cairns stacked up here!!!! We missed this and continued climbing straight up about 50 feet.) If you like rock climbing, by all means go straight up and skip the cairns. Otherwise, take the easier path!

But Cleo's Bath (the pools) was pretty. You can see out over the pool to the lake below. While the water was too rough for us to really play around, we were able to get wet up to our waists. It was freezing though!!!! But there's no way I got through all of that rock climbing to not get in the water. The sound of rushing water and the crashing impact of the small waterfall that feeds to pool was pretty sweet. I would have explored upstream a little bit to look for more pools, but the girls I took with me weren't in the mood. So we chilled on the granite beach and snacked before we headed back down. On the way down, we took the other side of the lake back to the parking lot. I'm guessing round trip it was about 5 1/2-6 miles. I got some sun too.....

All in all, I got some exercise and got to hang out with the girls, so I was satisfied!!

The girls before the hike (above); our battle scars from climbing (below)

 Sitting in the pools...sorta... (above); falls feeding the pools (below)

 Looking out from Cleo's Bath to Pinecrest Lake (below)

  The girls crossing the bridge to hike the other side of the lake (below)

 And me with Selena, who actually enjoyed the hike as much as I did ("Come on guys, hurry up!!" "Dude, the mist is all over me, sweet!"  "Aren't you going to get in the pools???")