Location: South Lake, Bishop, CA
Distance: 7.5 miles Lollipop Loop TIme: 4-6 hours
Difficulty: Moderately Challenging
Elevation Gain: 1,640 FT
Season: May-November (Varies year to year due to snowpack)
Foot Traffic: Light (once off of the Bishop Pass Trail)
Date Hiked: June 26, 2020
Overview
It’s hard to find a more beautiful area to hike than the expansive and fabulous trails leading into the backcountry from the South Lake area in Bishop. Multiple day hike options present themselves from the South Lake Trailhead. These trails include, Bishop Pass, Green Lake, Treasure Lakes and the Chocolate lakes Loop. There are many other hikes as well, but most of those are better suited for an overnight trip, such as the gorgeous Dusy Basin and LeConte Canyon.
For those looking for a reprieve from the crowds that are common on the Bishop Pass Trail, the Chocolate Lakes Loop is a great option. This is your classic Eastern Sierra hike with dramatic peaks and alpine lakes aplenty. Resting within the John Muir Wilderness, inside the Inyo National Forest, the route to Chocolate Lakes starts from the Bishop Pass trailhead at South Lake. One of the biggest pluses of this hike is the amount of solitude it offers. Coming in at under eight miles, day hikers will also delight in the reasonable and manageable mileage.
Part of the fun of hiking Chocolate Lakes is the route finding. While nothing to crazy, route finding skills and a map will come in handy. With that being said, this trail should be suitable for most hikers. The trail is best suitable for families with older kids and teenagers. This hike also allows the option to summit Chocolate Peak as a short side trip off of the main trail.
Trail Description and My Story
Wanting to do a hike for my wife’s birthday that would be new to us, we settled on the trail to Chocolate Lakes. For some reason, despite its beauty, the Chocolate Lakes trail doesn’t seem to attract as much attention as some of the surrounding trails that share the same starting point, such as the extremely popular Bishop Pass trail. Chocolate Lakes is even surprisingly, left out of a lot of Sierra hiking books. We found a ton of solitude on this day. After driving up Bishop Pass and arriving at the South Lake parking lot around 8 am, we made our way over to the official trail head for Chocolate Lakes, which it shares with the Treasure Lakes trail and the Bishop Pass trail and begins just to the left of the big trail board.
Starting the Chocolate Lakes Loop
The elevation at the start of the trail head is around 9800 ft. Almost immediately the trail began down some stairs. A brief descent ensued before leveling out. The trail now started us on a gradual climb along the western shoreline of South Lake.
It took no time for stunning views of jagged, High Sierra peaks to open up in front of us.
At around .5 mile into the trail we veered away from the shoreline and headed into the shaded tree line. Shortly thereafter at .8 miles, we reached our first junction of the day at the signed Treasure Lakes marker. As the Treasure Lakes trail split off to the right, we kept left and stayed on the Bishop Pass trail.
Treasure Lakes Trail Junction to Bull Lake/Chocolate Lakes Trail Junction
Now, 1 mile into the hike, we reached a stream crossing and a wooden footbridge. Shortly after, we came to our 2nd junction of the day, at the signed Marie Louise Lakes marker at 1.4 miles. The trail for these lakes went left but we went right and once again continued along the Bishop Pass trail. Taking the left onto the Marie Louise Lakes trail is also a option. From there, the trail will end up at Bull Lake and then at the Chocolate Lakes while only adding a bit of total mileage to the entire hike. In my opinion the Marie Louise Lakes are smaller and marshier and not as dramatic and impressive as the many lakes you will encounter ahead.
Now back on the Bishop Pass trail, we hit a few short switchbacks and then encountered a few obscured views of Hurd Lake to our East before ascending to the signed junction for Bull Lake/Chocolate Lakes at 1.9 miles.
Bull Lake/Chocolate Lakes Trail Junction to Long Lake
From what I have seen and read, almost everyone will choose to make the left here and turn away from the Bishop Pass trail and start the loop hike to Chocolate Lakes in a clockwise direction. I personally think it is a little more adventurous and fun to hike it in a counterclockwise direction and that is how I will describe it here. We continued right at the junction and shortly ascended on the Bishop Pass trail until the trail topped out at around 2.2 miles. Looking ahead of us there was now nothing in sight but flatness and downhill for the short future, We stopped briefly to relax and take in the views of the few tarns that were not present as we neared the shoreline of Long Lake and caught our first glimpses of other people that we had had all morning.
Long Lake to Ruwau Lake
There were a few anglers dispersed along the shoreline as we continued along the left side of Long Lake.
As we grew closer to the backside of Long Lake, the signed junction with Ruwau Lake came into view on our left hand side at 2.8 miles. This would be the junction that we would veer off from the Bishop Pass trail on and begin our counterclockwise loop towards Ruwau Lake and the down to Chocolate Lakes and Bull Lake before finishing our loop.
From here on out we would encounter only two small groups the rest of the day, until we reached Bull Lake in the afternoon. As we made a left and were now starting on a steady incline towards Ruwau Lake, a bunch of dark clouds were gathering to our East. To our west we could see the distinct, beautiful, peak of Cloudripper and the sky looked much clearer in that direction, which would be the way we would ultimately be heading.
About halfway up the now steep trail, we hesitated to take a quick breather and my wife shouted “oh my god, look up”. There nestled into a tall pine tree was a beautiful owl. This was my first time seeing an owl in the wild and we sat at looked at him for a few minutes before continuing. I would love to have more information but birding isn’t really my strong suit, but from what I’ve looked up I think it was a Barn Owl that we were seeing. This is just my guess from the pictures I googled but I would love to know if someone has a better idea of what type of owls live up in this area. At around 3.4 miles we reached the shoreline of Ruwau Lake.
Reaching Ruwau Lake
It was a beautiful lake with a little island nestled into the middle of it. Because of the cloud cover above us, the water wasn’t a striking color as it is when the sun hits it. This is where we decided to drop our packs and take our first real break of the day and eat some food.
My wife and I both took turns wandering the shoreline in each direction looking for different views and angles to take photos. Once we felt that we had spent enough time at Ruwau Lake, we set out along the left side of the lake to make our way up towards the pass.
Ruwau Lake to Chocolate Lakes
This is where the trail really started to get fun and required a bit of route finding. I had a horrible time finding the trail once we left the shoreline of Ruwau. Eventually, we made our way steeply up a rocky, meadow area, keeping chocolate peak to our left.
Faint trails would present themselves every now and again and help us believe that we were on the right track. Eventually, we hit a saddle below Chocolate Peak where we could see a faint trail that would take one to the summit if they so wished. If deciding to hike to the summit of Chocolate peak its about a 30 minute detour to the summit.
Our goal was to get to upper Chocolate Lake and to spend most of the afternoon meandering and exploring around them. From the top of the saddle we could now see the upper lake directly beneath us, but still quite a ways down. There were some big snowfields present and a huge boulder field standing in the way too getting down to the lakes, with no actual trail visible.
We decided to slowly make our way down the boulder field, inching our way towards the snowfield and then too slowly slide down that until we reached the shore of the Upper Chocolate Lake.
As we were making our way down the boulder field we got another surprise. We had our first every encounter with a Pika. This small animal, resembling a rabbit, looked up at us until it grew uncomfortable and took off. It was extremely quick and nearly impossible to get a picture of but was neat having seen two wild animals in such a short period of time, both of which we had never encountered before.
Upper Chocolate Lake to Middle Chocolate Lake
As we grew closer to the lake, the jagged peak of Cloudripper was now in front of us, backing Chocolate Lake and creating a dramatic scene. The sun had come out now and the lake was lit up and looked astonishing.
With no other hikers anywhere to be found, we decided to once again take our packs off and just aimlessly explore.
The setting was amazing and we could have stayed at this lake all day. Reluctantly deciding to push forward, we followed the upper lake towards the front of its shore and to the other side of the lake.
Seeing the next lake below us, the trail cut in between the middle lake and the upper lake and then followed middle Chocolate Lake along its far right shore. The trail was kind of hard to find at points but we ventured off trail a bit to check out the ponds and different areas.
However, it was never hard to get back on to the main trail. Once we neared the end of Middle Chocolate Lake, we traversed a little section that eventually led us back to the other side again and we ended up on the left shoreline of lower Chocolate Lake.
Middle Chocolate Lake to Lower Chocolate Lake and Bull Lake
I completely missed this trail and ended up along the right shoreline with no problem. Having a screenshot of the trail map on your phone, or a map of this route, is very helpful in staying on the actual trail.
The one drawback to hiking the loop in this counterclockwise direction is that the sheer cliffs and inspiring views will be to your back as you are hiking down.
My wife and I were stopping so frequently to look back and take photos and take in the scenery that this didn’t really seem to bother us.
Middle and lower Chocolate Lake are beautiful lakes as well but I personally found Upper Chocolate Lake to be the most stunning and my favorite.
The Chocolate Lakes are all pretty close in proximity and it wont take much time to make your way from one to the next. From lower Chocolate Lake it will take a little longer to reach the next lake, as Bull lake is a little further away.
The trail pretty much descends the whole way as it follows a very relaxing stream until reaching the shoreline of Bull Lake and flattening out.
Finishing the Loop From Bull Lake
Bull Lake is the biggest of the lakes along this stretch and is very pretty as well and very popular with anglers.
We stopped many times along the shorelines of Bull Lake to take in the shadows of the peaks that were now bouncing off of it.
Knowing that it was getting later in the day and wanting to spend some of my wife’s birthday back in town we decided to finally leave the lakes behind us and finish the last short descent from Bull Lake back to the junction with the Bishop Pass trail. Once at the junction with the the Bishop Pass trail we took a right and made quick work of the next 2 miles back to the parking lot.
Upon reaching the parking lot I realized that despite starting on the trail at around 815, we had managed to be on the trail for over 6 hours. This trail by no means takes 6 hours. However, I would highly suggest dedicating a majority of the day to complete this hike. While it is a relatively moderate hike, you will be starting at a very high elevation. In addition, you will want to give yourself plenty of time to enjoy the lakes and sights without rushing. While we had been on other sections around this hike, the Chocolate Lakes ended up surpassing my expectations and being a hike that I will not hesitate to return to.
Directions to the Chocolate Lakes Trailhead at South Lake
From Hwy 395 in Bishop, take W. Line St/Hwy 168 and follow it up the pass for 15 miles. Make a left onto South Lake road and follow the road for 7 miles until the road ends at the day use parking area for Bishop Pass.
Driving Directions: S Lake Rd, Bishop, CA 93514
Notes, Questions and Thoughts
Is this a fee area?
- No, there are no fees to hike the Chocolate Lakes Trail or to park at the South Lake Trailhead.
Are dogs allowed on the Chocolate Lakes Trail?
- Dogs are allowed but must be leashed and kept in control at all times. Please pick up and properly dispose of all animal waste.
Are there restrooms at the trailhead?
- Yes, vault toilets are located just before the trail board.
Is overnight Camping allowed?
- Yes, however, wilderness permits are required for all overnight stays and are limited to 36 people per day. Reservations can be made on recreation.gov up to 6 months in advance.
Restrictions:
- Food, trash and scented items must be stored in Bear proof containers.
- No campfires above 10,000 feet
- Groups cannot be larger than 15 people (this includes day use). For the enjoyment and pleasure of everyone using this area, I would highly recommend not hiking in groups larger than 6.
Please recreate responsibly. Respect hikers, anglers, and all visitors and wildlife. Help make everyone’s experience better by keeping the nature experience as authentic as possible. Leave no trace and pack out everything that you pack in. Please remember that we are visitors and stewards of these special places. Help keep these places as wild as possible while not diminishing the outdoor experience of others.
