Arrived at the trailhead at 05:45 this morning (Saturday) and hit the trail about an hour later after eating and resting from the long drive down. Only four of the spots in the main lot by the TH were taken up when I got there, mostly from backpackers the night prior (one other dayhiker that headed up just prior to me). There are no restrooms at the actual trailhead, so if you need to go, stop by the restrooms at the entry of the park.
I headed in and was greeted by a little warm-up incline, then some easy flatness to get my muscles ready for the ongoing elevation gain I was about to embark on. After about 0.5mi in, the incline begins - at an average of about 10% - and it doesn't stop until just before you get to the campground. my head was not in the game this morning, and I found this very challenging. It took me a little over 2hrs to get up to the lakes.
But holy cow, when I finally got to the lakes... WOW. Magical. The scenery is breathtaking!
My notes on the snow and bugs: snow is almost melted out and, as others have mentioned, exists just before camp. Watch your step (and little ones!) because there is a very, very deep post hole. There were a few bees on the way up, but the bugs at the lakes were terrible. I couldn't even stop to get my pack off at the lakes before getting bombarded. I had DEET and my sun hoodie on, and the mosquitoes were relentless.
Tamanos Creek Camp is nice and tucked away from the bug situation. I snooped around a little and it looks like there's three or four smaller campsites for one or two tents, and one or two group camp sites. There's also a toilet (I think a vault, didn't visit) and a bear hang). The Camp is only a few minutes away from the stream so fresh water for filtering is available. I'll need to do some investigating because camping out here seems like it'd be a nice little getaway!
My watch clocked in just over 9 miles round trip, after briefly checking out camp and visiting the lakes. I loaded the GPX into Relive and it came out to 9.4 miles. WTA and AllTrails both have this as being only 7 miles, so take that with a grain of salt.
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