Choosing a mining pool I've read that some mining pools disappears all of a sudden, and your hard earned coins also disappear if you didn't transfer them ontime.

My question is, how do you go about picking a pool which isn't going to disappear?

I've not done mining before, but want to try out litecoin mining.

Or is it better for me to start mining without using a pool if that's possible?
If you are starting off, I will assume you do not have the computing power to solo-mine.

It's just easier to join a pool, and with regards to trusting one, I would stick with something that has been around for a while. For Litecoin I've used wemineltc and have no complaints.