Florence Lake, California
August 2025
In another time and place, when I was young, camping was our primary summer activity as a family. Car camping in the Rocky Mountains allowed us to access remote campsites with a truck full of army surplus gear, fire wood, fishing poles, bottles of soda and hot dogs. We would rumble along forest service roads until we pulled up next to a flat area under a few trees with a stream running by. Most importantly, not another person to be found.
Fast forward thirty or forty years and now living among the people of California, remote camping can be had, but not in a car and not by a stream. I knew that I could find remote camping in California, but I would have to earn it. The price of solitude was a long drive and a short hike with a heavy pack.
The entry cost for backpacking is steep (I think two grand might be a decent estimate). Selecting gear for use and size would take a lot of research. Fitness and health are two other obstacles. Not knowing how I would overcome these obstacles, I never made any progress towards fulfilling my backpacking dreams. For years we camped cheek to jowl with the masses of car campers along Big Sur and Yosemite. The presence of so many loud (and quiet) others never gave me the peace of mind that remote camping offered.
Finally, with the threat of smart phones taking over every minute of family time. I was enticed by the idea of being without cell service among the rocks and trees, rivers and lakes of the Sierras. If you are lucky enough to have friends, I mean friends with backpacking gear. And if those friends are willing to lend you backpacking gear than you can dip your toes into backpacking without getting in too deep. Or, you could rent a kit from your local outdoor store.
Being that we had not explored the Sierras on foot, we really didn’t know where to go and what it might offer. As luck would have it, my brother got some intel from an avid outdoorsman friend. His friend knew just the place for a group of novices who wanted to get some solitude along a river without over exerting ourselves.
The drive to Florence Lake really allowed us to get pretty far into the Sierras by car. Once we arrived at Florence lake we took the ferry across the lake. This saved us 4 miles of hiking but cost $25 per person. Our backpacks weighed about 30 pounds each. We planned to stay three nights and a one mile hike was really not much of a test of our backpacking abilities. All Trails has great Maps of the area we hiked.
Footwear is not something you can rent, so we had to figure that out. In our case it was not a difficult problem as the hike we planned on was only one mile! I wore my daily tennis shoes (New Balance 880), and did not have any issues with comfort. The younger hikers in our group wore Vans and the like. I still think I might wear light shoes with good tread and a lot of cushion even if I were to approach six to eight miles of hiking per day. I think trail running shoes have been adopted by some more serious hikers.
After a one mile hike we arrived at a short bridge over a small stone canyon with a deep river passing under us. The South Fork of the San Joaquin River had plenty of water in it even in August, but you could clearly see the high water marks along the canyon walls. This river must be a powerful waterway when the snow melt feeds it during the spring and early summer. We could see trout, some over twelve inches, swimming in the clear, deep water below the bridge. We were advised to bring crickets for bait if we hoped to catch any. Bait and fishing licenses were acquired in Shaver Lake before we got on the service roads that took us to Florence Lake. We could see a group of four camped along the river near the bridge. After scouting the area for about twenty minutes we found a location that had been used for riverside camping and we set up camp near the stone fire pit that had been carefully built by other back country campers.
I was a little disappointed to find other campers nearby. We drove for hours, took a ferry across a lake and hiked for 1 mile only to find others waiting for us. But, the hike was only 1 mile, their were only four other campers and it is unlikely they brought enough alcohol to truly ruin our back country camping experience. They turned out to be quiet and far enough away that we didn’t really notice them and they left after one night. We had found some solitude in the Sierras without hiking to the point of exhaustion. We also found dark skies, wildflowers and a beautiful, deep, clear river to swim and fish in.
Even though we only hiked one mile, the backpacking gear was indispensable. Lightweight tents, sleeping bags, packs, cooking equipment, dehydrated food, and water filter were all needed even for a short hike. If we hope to visit the Sierras in search of solitude and beauty we will need to acquire some expensive gear. It was a highlight of our summer and it is good to know that it is possible. We will add this to our list of possible future re-adventures.
