My friend and I are planning to go up Friday night for a couple nights at Cottonwood Lakes. Here is our planned itinerary:
Friday night - arrive Horseshoe Meadows late (probably between 9 and 10 pm), hike to Cottonwood Lakes in the dark.
Saturday - Acclimatization hike to Cirque Peak, back down to sleep at Cottonwood Lakes
Sunday - Early start to head up Langley, hopefully off the summit before noon, then pack up camp and head home.
Questions:
1. Permits are all reserved for Cottonwood Lakes trail for Friday. We will not be arriving in Lone Pine until after the visitor center is closed - so we won't be able to pick up a walk in permit. Any suggestions on alternatives? Should we consider Cottonwood Pass?
Our backup plan right now is to camp at Horseshoe Meadows Friday night, run down and get a walk in permit on Saturday and hike to Cottonwood Lakes on Saturday - possibly needing to cut our acclimatization hike to Cirque Peak.
2. OAP or NAP? On Sunday, we plan to start out very early in the morning (in the dark). I know there has been a lot of discussion on this board, and the consensus seems to be that OAP is the better option - but due to the route finding issues, would NAP be a better choice for us given our alpine start?
Thanks in advance for the help!
