Lake Tahoe Area Hiking Trails

One of my favorite trails in the Tahoe area is Winnemucca Lake Hiking Trail is a wildflower extravaganza! You'll be amazed at the variety, and sheer volume of flowers on this incredible trail that takes you up into the Mokelumne Wilderness Area in the Eldorado National Forest, along the Pacific Crest Trail. The wildflowers grow everywhere along this trail in the most picturesque settings imaginable! The trail also affords breathtaking views of Round Top Mountain and The Sierra Mountains.

The best time of the year to hike the Winnemucca Lake Trail for beautiful flowers is in July, but this trail is beautiful right thru fall too. Spring is questionable as the area receives massive amounts of snowfall, In fact over 850" of snow fell here last winter, that's over 70 feet! And that's why the flowers are so amazing.

The hike is on a typical rugged trail and is easy to moderate in difficulty.

If your in the Lake Tahoe Area during the summer, you should hike this trail.

Here's what I recommend. Take the boat ride for around $10, across Echo Lake, through the channel and across Upper Echo Lake to the far NW side where to the drop off and hike up from there. From this point the trail heads up into the Desolation Wilderness Area of the Eldorado National Forest. Beat feet up the trail about and when you come to the fork, which is well marked (.4 mi) Hiking left takes you to Tamarack Lake (.3 mi) and Ralston Lake another Half mile. It's so beautiful up there I highly recommend this as a nice moderate difficulty trail. Bring a picnic lunch and make a day of it! Now, skip the boat ride back to the parking, so you don't miss the awesome hike along the lake back to the car. It's just wonderful! It's a nice gradual downhill most of the way for one thing and the scenery is absolutely breathtaking. It's a little over 3 mi miles of relatively easy hiking back to the car.

Were back at the fork and went left? If your a little more hardy and adventurous go right! Hike 3 mi up to Lake Aloha in the Desolation Wilderness Area. Oh-My-Goodness is it beautiful! The Islands on this lake? Well, there must be a hundred of them. Bring your camera on this hike, theres lots of great images to be had. Once again I'd recommend the hike back along Echo Lakes shoreline trail to the car. This variation is moderate also but longer.

Don't just take my word for it check out my Echo Trail lake Gallery and see how nice it is there. Better yet make some popcorn and view the Echo Lake Trail Slide Show.

Meiss Lake Trail is a favorite trail of mine to hike in July, because of it's amazing fields of wildflowers. This trail isn't far from the Winnemucca Lake Trail and the amount of precipitation this area receives, is impressive. Were talking 500 inches per winter, on the average, over the last 10 years!

This hiking trail in the Eldorado National Forest starts almost right away winding it's way up to Meiss Pass when you crest the pass you'll hike down into the most beautiful valley high up in the Sierra Mountains of California, where a look to the North affords the hiker a view of Lake Tahoe far off in the distance. A look to the south rewards the hiker with panoramic views of Round Top Mountain in the Mokelumne Wilderness.

Meiss Lake Hiking Trail starts out climbing for a while but it switch backs around so it's not too steep. Then it's not that bad down into the valley where the wildflowers are so unbelievable. I'll call this one a moderate plus in difficulty.

This Trail begins near the top of Carson pass along CA 88 not far from Kirkwood Mountain Resort.
It was so beautiful, I took a lot of photos up there. Check out this Meiss Lake Hiking Trail Photo Gallery I made up, or if you prefer, you can view it as a Slideshow

Enjoy the Sierra Mountain Wildflowers year-round with this beautiful 2008 Sierra Wildflower Calendar by flowski. All the photos on the calendar were taken on hiking trips into the National Forest and wilderness areas.

Cascade Falls hiking trail in the Eldorado National Forest is a scenic hike that traverses a steep mountain side and all along the way provides the hiker with spectacular views of Cascade Lake, Lake Tahoe and the beautiful Sierra Mountains.

At the end of the two mile, moderately difficult hike in, is a gorgeous rushing waterfall, Cascade Falls. Fed by snow melting on the high Sierra mountain peaks the whole Cascade Creek above the falls is worthy of your exploration as well, the way the river takes several paths through the classic Sierra landscape is so pretty.

Don't forget your camera on this hiking trip the scenery on this one makes it something to remember. The trail is easy to moderate in difficulty with some elevation gain but nothing too long and steep and typical rugged uneven walking surfaces it's a trail not a path!

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