Lake Tahoe backcountry hiking is anything but desolate
Written: Sep 15 '04
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Scenery: |
 |
|
| Crowds: |
 |
|
| Time needed for visit: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Spectacular vistas, clear lakes, snow-dotted mountain summits, well marked trails, and open camping
Cons: Must get permits in advance for backcountry camping, there are other people there...
The Bottom Line: Desolation Wilderness offers a wide variety of terrain, a number of well marked and well-known trails, and spectacular scenery in the Rockies.
|
|
|
| gdinero's Full Review: Desolation Wilderness |
The Desolation Wilderness located adjacent to Lake Tahoe is one of the most gorgeous and unique areas I have ever experienced. It includes several well-known trails, including the Pacific Crest Trail, the Tahoe Rim Trail (which covers over 150 miles taking you completely around Lake Tahoe), and the Tahoe-Yosemite trail among others. Spectaular vistas and crystal blue lakes are breath-taking.
If you are in decent condition and enjoy hiking, you absolutely must visit this place.
Desolate What?
The Wilderness seems to be concentrated in the southwest corner of Lake Tahoe, on the California side of the lake. Elevation ranges from 6900 feet to over 10,000 feet, with a huge variety in landscape and some ridiculous number of lakes. In order to get there from Lake Tahoe, you will need to climb a minimum of 800 feet in elevation. You'll have views of crystal clear blue and green lakes, moonscape-like rocks with snow-crested mountains in the background, and forested meadows populated by various (mostly fir and pine) trees.
There are a couple of reasons why I love what I experienced there. First, you can't beat the scenery. Second, many established trails give you options for hiking to lakes and summits without requiring any bushwacking. You can do a backcountry loop or one-way hike, or day hiking, and get to see a huge array of landscape. With warm summer days and cool summer nights, the weather makes for a great camping trip. There's no shortage of water supply if camping overnight. With a quota on the number of overnight permits, you won't run out of room to camp. You can camp anywhere, so finding a camp site is never a problem. While bears are a concern, they aren't so prevalent that you have to cook food away from your campsight. And there's no shortage of swimming holes either.
Where is it?
There are many many trail heads from parking lots into the Desolation wilderness. A few that I know about include Meeks Bay, Rubicon bay, Emerald Bay (two popular day hiking trail heads are Eagle Lake and Bayview, both requiring a 1200 foot climb to get to the main part of Desolation wilderness, or about 3 hours each way if you are in good condition), Echo and Heather lakes.
If you follow this http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=10&n=4303396.99941304&e=754973.000295728&datum=nad83, then choose 1:250K Series option, and 1:500,000 scale, and update the map, you'll get a topographic map of the general area in the left-hand side of the window. (I can't get a link with all of the required options chosen for you). The official government site with permit information can be found http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/eldorado/wild/deso/. I'm not entirely sure how permits are priced, but 3 nights for 2 people cost us $35, and the permits were faxed to us in advance. Day hiking permits are free and are obtained at various trail heads on boards permanently stationed there. Some trail heads do require a fee for parking (the fee is waived if you have a permit for overnight camping).
We decided to do a one-way hike, parking our car at the end of the hike and taking a taxi to the trail head. Our hike was 20 miles in its most efficient form from Echo Lake dead south of Tahoe to Emerald Bay ($50 USD taxi ride) to the south western part of Tahoe. I'm including detailed GPS waypoint data at the end of this review, and I'll talk about distances in more detail there.
Navigation
While the trails in the Wilderness are well marked, there are many of them. If you are not familiar with the area, a good topographic map, compass, and potentially a GPS with a premarked route will be essential. The people who maintain the trails were nice enough to put up signs at major cross roads pointing to major landmarks like a certain lake or pass or mountain.
Planning
If you are day hiking, there's almost nothing to plan. The only problem you might run into is a lack of parking space if you arrive late on a popular holiday weekend. When you get to the trail head, fill out the permit for your day hike, and go. There are no facilities of any sort in the Wilderness, and you should be prepared with water, small first aid kit, and any other toiletries and food you might need for the day.
If you plan to overnight camp, you'll need to call the ranger station in Placerville (50 miles or so from Tahoe, on the way to Sacramento), and arrange for overnight permits. Your first night will have to be in the assigned zone (you don't have to stick to a certain campsight, just a specific region of the wilderness), and then after that you can go where you please.
There is also an REI between Sacramento and Tahoe, and if you are coming from the Bay area, you can pick up hiking and topo maps there.
Other supplies that I think would be useful to backcountry campers include:
- something to hang your food with, such as a stuff sack and rope.
- Sun tan lotion - the sun is vicious up there
- Bathing suit or suitable shorts, swimming is abundant
- Walking sticks to make climbs a little easier on the joints
- Clothing suitable for night-time temps that can reach the 30s at times (Our first night was in the 30s, and at a mountain pass, and I wore all of my clothes in my sleeping bag to stay warm)
- Fishing pole: fish are abundant and fishing is allowed, although I'm not sure if you need to obtain an additional permit
- Do Get The Permits - we were asked by 3 different rangers to show ours over four days! It's a $100/person/day fine if you're caught without 'em, and you will be asked to immediately hike out of the wilderness.
We did not use bug spray for our trip, and I didn't notice any poisonous plants.
The Trail, GPS Points and Elevation
Our trip was from Echo Lake to Emerald Bay. We hiked 5.2 miles the first day to Lucille Lake, which is just off the main trail before you reach Lake Aloha. We hiked 10.5 miles the second day (it was a bit aggressive, as it involves the 1700' elevation climb to the top of Dick's pass before descending 1000' to Dick's Lake where we camped. We stayed at Dick's Lake a 3rd night, only day hiking from there to the nearby Velma Lakes, which were our favorite lakes in the area. And finally, we hiked out 4.5 miles from Dick's Lake to Emerald Bay via the Bayview trail which includes 1500' elevation descent in total, but also going up hill for part of the hike. You can also get to Emerald Bay from Dick's or Velma's lakes via Eagle Lake trail, but you won't get the same views as Bayview, and the switchbacks have 18" steps at parts.
GPS Waypoints for my Desolation Wilderness itinerary
Echo Lake - N38 50 03.9 W120 02 37.9 - Elevation 7,516'
Lucille Lake - N38 51 43.0 W120 06 45.1 - Elevation 8,157' (highest point along the way was 8,382', 5.2 miles from trail head)
Dick's Pass - N38 54 26.7 W120 08 03.7 - Elevation 9,364' (lowest point along the way was 7,702', which was just East of Suzie Lake near the signpost for Glen Alpine)
Dick's Lake - N38 54 53.3 W120 08 48.6 - Elevation 8,393' (10.5 miles from Lucille)
Upper Velma Lake (well, off the trail where we went swimming) - N38 56 12.1 W120 09 11.1 - Elevation 7,918' (2.5 miles from Dick's Lake campground)
Bayview Trailhead (at Lake Tahoe) - N38 56 45.0 W120 05 53.9 - Elevation 6,854' (4.5 miles from Dick's Lake)
Bottom Line
If crystal blue lakes nestled between snow-dotted mountains adjacent to several famous trails sounds appealing, this might be an area for you. Huge variety in terrain makes for spectacular viewing, and well marked trails make the trip stress free. This has been my favorite hiking trip to-date, better than anything I've hiked in Big Sur, Zion, Yosemite, Havasupai, or Sedona. My only regret may be making it more popular/crowded with this review.
Recommended:
Yes
Best time to go: June-August
Recommended for: Anybody
Review Topic: Hiking & Trails
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
gdinero
|
|
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Travel addict. Love speed, gadgets, and sometimes my PS2.
38 Countries and counting...
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.