![]() For many visitors, the attractions are the adjacent creek, which flows steeply across broken, jagged rocks forming waterfalls, cascades and deep pools suitable for swimming, and also a small lake (Lily) just upstream, but there are several good destinations suitable for half day hikes as well as more distant places, of which Lake Aloha is the best. This is, however, not nearly sufficient for the many vehicles here at peak times, so the excess have to use small, rocky pullouts along the road all the way back to Fallen Leaf. ![]() The road eventually passes the last buildings in town, including Fallen Leaf Lodge, climbs the hillside to the southwest alongside a fast flowing stream ( Glen Alpine Creek), and ends half a mile further at a fairly large parking area. Long stretches are single-lane, with only small passing places, yet much of this area is rather busy, part of the extended residential community of Fallen Leaf this, together with the high volume of traffic heading to the trailhead can make the drive slow and difficult, and it is definitely not suitable for large RVs. This runs through empty pine/aspen woodland for a while, past a USFS campground, and then along the east shore of Fallen Leaf Lake, where the road narrows and is bordered by big trees close to the edge. The Glen Alpine trailhead is at the end of the paved Fallen Leaf Road, forking south off Hwy 89, 3 miles from the US 50 intersection in South Lake Tahoe. There is also a camp store and an amphitheater. Amenities include flush toilets, showers, a dump station, picnic tables, fire rings, and potable water. Several trails branch off to other places further in the wilderness, and Lake Aloha is a favored backpacking destination, yet is easily reached on a day trip. Located just off Lake Tahoe’s south shore, Fallen Leaf Campground has 206 campsites and remains open from the middle of May through the end of October. Varied environments en route are home to especially abundant wildflowers, and the whole hike offers spectacular, ever-changing scenery. The path passes a cluster of surviving wood and stone buildings from the resort then climbs steadily alongside a creek to the first of two intermediate lakes (Susie), closely followed by the smaller Heather Lake before the final ascent to the shore of Lake Aloha. The hike begins at Glen Alpine, a historic valley west of Fallen Leaf Lake that was the location of the first Tahoe-area resort in the 1880s, a site long since abandoned. The lake is buried under snow for more than half of the year, high up in the Desolation Wilderness on the southwest side of Lake Tahoe, but is relatively simple to reach for around four months in summer and fall, when the 5 mile trail is quite popular. Lake Aloha must be one of the most beautiful places in the Sierras - a large, shallow lake filled by clear blue water, dotted with a myriad of tiny islands and surrounded by stark hillsides of white granite slickrock bearing very little vegetation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |