Journeys›Photograph

Early June at the Loch Leven Lakes

·Placer County, California·#hiking#summer#tahoe#sierra nevada#dogs#lakes
A forest with tall pine trees, a bright blue sky, white clouds, a stream, and large rocks in the foreground.

Three lakes today, starting from the trailhead across from the Big Bend Fire Station on old Highway 40 — about eight miles round trip and eleven hundred feet up, dog along for all of it. Early June this high still means snowmelt, and the creek near the bottom was running hard through the boulders, loud enough to hear before we saw it.

The lower lake had come up over its own shoreline. Grass standing in a foot of clear water, the trail going soggy along the edge, snow still sitting on the crest off to the southwest. The dog waded straight into the flooded part and found the mud on the way back out.

Worth pushing on past that one. Farther up the water cleared to green over pale rock in one cove, and at the last lake the wind had the whole surface chopped into a hard blue with nothing sheltered about it. Turned around there. The soggy stretch along the lower lake had not drained any in the hours between.

A dirt path next to a lake with green grass, surrounded by a pine forest under a blue sky with distant snowy mountains.A dirt path lines a calm lake with submerged grass, backed by a dense evergreen forest and distant snow-capped mountains under a blue sky.A lake with green grass and submerged plants, bordered by a dense coniferous forest under a blue sky with clouds.A dog on grassy shore of a lake surrounded by pine trees, with distant snowy mountains under a cloudy sky.Green grass leads to a lake surrounded by pine-covered hills, with distant snowy mountains under a cloudy sky.A lake surrounded by green grass and dense pine forests, with a large pine tree in the foreground.Green lake water with a visible sandy bottom, surrounded by tall pine trees, with tree roots and branches in the foreground.A clear blue lake fills the foreground, with a thick green forest lining the distant shore beneath a bright blue sky.

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