Nhi and Ed took a weekend trip to the Eastern Sierras in August.  About 10 miles west of Big Pine (which is about 20 miles south of Bishop) lies the Big Pine creek trailhead.  The North Fork trail leads to a chain of 9 alpine lakes, 7 of which have completely unimaginative names like First Lake, Second Lake, Third Lake, and so on up to Seventh Lake (the last 2 are called Black Lake and Summit Lake).   Our goal was Second Lake, which is about 5 miles in with 2000 feet of elevation gain.

The trail starts around 8000 feet elevation and follows the creek upstream, which had a surprising amount of water considering that it was mid-August in a drought year.  We even saw several fishermen with poles in the water, although I didn't see anyone catch anything.

Looking back on our progress from a pass about 2 miles in.  You can see the trail we hiked up as a brown line in the bottom left corner, coming out of the trees in the middle.

This is near the top of a waterfall through the pass.  The trail is right next to the creek.

A shady alpine forest at 9000 feet elevation.

Enjoying the view and a well-deserved rest at First Lake, about 4.5 miles in.  

We saw this mule train heading back down the trail.  Earlier in the day we had passed a group of 6 hikers who said they had hired the mules to drop off their supplies and equipment at Fourth Lake for a 2 night camping stay.  Then after the 2nd night the mules would come back to pick up all their stuff.

Ed looking out over Second Lake at 10,000 feet elevation.  The ominous looking mountain in the background (which still has some patches of snow in the crevices even in mid-August) is called Temple Crag and peaks out at 12,999 feet.  Maybe that's why it looks so cranky since it's just 1 foot short of 13,000.  

Stopping for a rest back at First Lake on the way back down.  

Overall it was a great hike and far more scenic than I expected.  We had driven up the 395 dozens of times on the way to Mammoth or Lake Tahoe and never thought of stopping anywhere along the way except for gas or food.  The 10 miles round trip took us about 8.5 hours (3.5 hours up, 3 hours down, and about 2 hours at the Lakes for lunch and relaxing).  We'd like to go back sometime to see more of the lakes, either by leaving earlier in the day or maybe spending a night camping in the wilderness.