A reader asks for recommendations for a California backpacking trip. The requirements:

  • Leaving in June.
  • 4-5 hours from the Bay Area.
  • 25 miles in 4.5 days.

The reader has hiked part of the Lost Coast and may decide to finish it on this trip (that would simplify things; you can’t go wrong on the Lost Coast, except getting stranded at high tide). Also, Hetch-Hetchy at Yosemite was hiked last fall so it’s off the list.

I had a couple thoughts:

  • Yosemite High Country would be awesome, but the water could be running so high that many of the creeks would be impossible to cross.
  • Trinity Alps springs to mind, though I don’t know how much snow they got up there this year.
  • Snow Mountain Wilderness northwest of Sacramento might be interesting.
  • More suggestions welcome; you guys get out a lot more than I do.