The words “Purple Lake” bring memories of great fishing and family when we hiked the JMT in 2008.  Not only were we pleasantly surprised when my brother-in-law Fitty (Matt) met us there, but it ended up being a great day of fishing and relaxing.  So, naturally, when my co-worker Alex said he wanted to go backpacking to a great fishing spot, the first place that popped in my mind was Purple Lake.

We took advantage of the long 4th of July weekend to have some extra time for a full day around the lake area.  A total of eight of us made the trip: Alex, Vince, and my sister Christy (all of whom have never gone backpacking in the high Sierra before), Keith, Terra, Fitty, and my wife and I.  The trailhead is at the back of Coldwater Campground near Lake Mary in the Mammoth Lakes area, and Fitty was able to snag a campsite for Thursday night for us who had a four hour drive from Fresno.

The hike to Purple Lake involved starting at the trailhead at an elevation of approximately 9,100 ft, passing by several lakes on the way to Duck Pass (10,800 ft), dropping down to Duck Lake’s outlet, then following the JMT to Purple Lake.  We camped on the Lake’s northwest shore on a spur trail leading to the Ram Lake area.

We spent the next day exploring the Ram Lake basin area above Purple Lake.  We started by taking the Ram Lake spur trail as far we could (it doesn’t appear to be very well maintained) to the first Ram Lake.  From there we had an awesome cross country trip through the Ram Lake basin, up over a snowy pass and down into Glen and Glennette Lakes, up and over another pass and then down to Virginia Lake.  This was perhaps my favorite cross country trip I have ever done.  I lost count of the number of stream crossings we encountered and lakes we walked by.  The highest pass during this day was around 11,000 ft, so we had a couple north-facing snow fields to climb.

The hike back to the trailhead the following day was fast - about 4.5 hours.  It took us about 6 hours to get to Purple Lake the first day, as we were still getting acclimated and breaking in our hiking legs.

There was very little wildlife around during our trip.  The place where we buried the fish guts was not disturbed while we were up there.  As with all our trips, we kept a clean camp and used bear canisters for anything with an odor (other than ourselves).

To sum it all up, the cross country day hike up above Purple Lake was absolutely spectacular and was everyone’s favorite part of the trip.  Just goes to show that you definitely do not see everything by only hiking the JMT.  You just got to get off the trail!