Journeys›Photograph

Clear June Day Around Gold Lake

·Gold Lake·#hiking#summer#gold lake#sierra buttes#lakes basin
Blue lake in foreground, dense pine forest, and snowy mountains under a clear blue sky.

Took the Jeep up into the Lakes Basin and walked the trail around Gold Lake — the biggest lake in the basin, 484 acres and something like a hundred feet deep, sitting at 6,400 feet in the Plumas National Forest southeast of Graeagle. Snow still hanging on the Sierra Buttes behind the far shore, water flat and dark blue in front of it, not a cloud until midday.

The trail runs through fir stands with ferns knee-deep across the whole forest floor, then opens onto a wet meadow under a granite dome, grass so green it looked dyed. Past that, one of the smaller lakes had warmed up enough to go pale green, and one of us swam out to the middle of it and waved back. I stayed dry.

All that water leaves through Frazier Creek and ends up in the Middle Fork of the Feather, which I only worked out on the map afterward. Coming back down the gravel road the Buttes showed up again between the trees, still holding their snow into June.

A lake with a dense evergreen forest lining the far shore under a blue sky, with green foliage in the foreground.Bright green ferns cover the sunlit forest floor, with tall trees framing a blue lake and distant mountains.A calm blue lake with a densely forested mountain in the background under a clear sky, and a tree on the right.Lush green meadow bordered by tall evergreen trees, rocky hills, and a forested mountain range under a cloudy blue sky.A smiling person in a blue hoodie and hat stands by a clear mountain lake with pine trees and rocky slopes.A person in sunglasses waves while swimming in a green lake with a forested shoreline in the background.An olive green Jeep Wrangler with off-road modifications is parked on a gravel road among tall pine trees.Snow-capped peaks rise behind an evergreen forest, framed by two large trees under a blue sky.

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