Journeys›Photograph

Late Summer Above Donner Lake

·Truckee, California·#california#lake tahoe#sierra nevada#landscape-photography#lake-view
Expansive view of a blue lake, dense pine forest, distant mountains, and a white house on a slope.

Up on the ridge above Donner Lake for the afternoon, at close to six thousand feet, and late September up here still reads as summer — firs everywhere, warm enough, only a few clouds moving across the water.

The lake sits about three miles west of downtown Truckee, and from the slope you can see nearly the whole thing at once — it's only three miles long and less than a mile wide, so the far shore and its mountains feel close. There was a sailboat out, small and white against all that blue. A big new house is going in partway down the slope, still surrounded by bare dirt and scrub.

Strange to remember it was Truckee Lake until the Donner Party wintered on it in 1846 and the name changed. The state park down on the southeast shore keeps the old camp ground. From up here it's just water and trees.

Panoramic view of a large blue lake surrounded by mountains and dense pine forests, with a house nestled on the left.A wide view of a large blue lake surrounded by dense green forests and distant mountains under a cloudy sky.A vast blue lake bordered by mountains under a bright sky, with dense evergreen forests in the foreground.A house overlooks a large blue lake surrounded by a dense forest, with distant mountains under a cloudy sky.

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