The Sierras have been on my mind for years now and a trip to the mountainous granite landscape, flower blooms, and beautiful alpine lakes was overdue for a visit.

We did not plan far ahead in advance so we were limited as to what permits we were able to grab but we did score a pair of permits to visit these alpine lakes and make an attempt to summit mount Tom which is at around 13,500ft.

The day before I had a podcast interview with www.gogetoutsode.com and spent an hour talking about diving, caving, and stories that started off with once upon a time in mexico....

We headed to the Gable Lakes trail head and it was raining pretty good the day before we were going to set out for Gable Lakes.

The rain appeared to disperse right as  the sunset and a clear sky was out for the midnight stars.

The following day we headed up early on the steep trail towards Gable Lakes.

The trailhead is in the back of the parking lot on the south side of the parking lot and follows a steep switch back to the mining equipment.

We did not find the trail to be too steep or difficult to follow as it meandered around the mountain and followed Gable Creek. 

We got to a vegetated spot where we got turned around a few times but Heather was able to find the trail and we continued our way up to Gable Lakes.

After almost three hours of hiking up 3700ft of elevation gain, we made it to Gable Lakes.

Gable Lakes is a series of kettle lakes from snow run off which is surrounded by peaks and steep walls of granite.

We got to an elevation of around 10,700ft above sea level and the views were just amazing!!

The Lakes, flowers, and the massive peaks made the views some of the best that I have seen in a long time in an alpine region.

There were some great campsites around the lakes and a trail that continued up to the upper tier of lakes The water up here was crystal clear and super cold but the views were something that we could not get enough of.

We took a bit of a nap up here and noticed that the clouds started to form into thunder clouds pretty quickly.

We did not make it up to the summit of mount Tom due to the chance of thunder so we spent more time enjoying these lakes and started our way back down to the car.

As we were descending the clods started to form and a few streaks of lightening crossed the sky.

We got back to the car in about 8 hours from when we started off.