Lake Aloha, Desolation Wilderness
A great second backpacking trip, up into Desolation Wilderness. We set out late Friday night, first meeting up with a second car in Davis. We rolled into South Lake Tahoe around midnight, and we were able to find a camping spot. The next morning we drove south past Fallen Leaf Lake and began our hike on the Eastern border of Desolation, at the Glen Alpine trailhead.
Immediately, we noticed a large amount of runoff. The trail was wet and flooded in many parts. A waterfall we passed early on was raging.
Overall, the hike was not too strenuous, at something like a thousand feet elevation gain and six miles. I did have a peristent headache, however, the entire first day, presumably from the high elevation (ended up ~9000ft). We began in a very green area and climbed upwards. There were plenty of puddles and streams to cross, from the aforementioned runoff.
After the first continuous climb, we reached Lake Susie. We found a deep blue lake, sitting on even ground, surrounded by rocky peaks. We hiked to a nice spot by a waterfall to have lunch. I ran off, following the stream from the waterfall, and stumbled upon a cliff, where the stream plunges into a gorgeous valley.
We hiked around the South end of Lake Susie and encountered the first large patch of snow on the trail. We knew to only expect more as we gained elevation. A brief climb later, we arrived at Lake Heather. Heather has a couple of islands with trees; they look like they would be fun to swim to and lounge upon in warmer weather (a member of our group attempted to swim to an island on the return leg, but the water was too frigid). The trail around Heather was all shale and loose rock. After Heather, we started climbing a hill, and that is when the scenery became very desolate. Towering cliffs of shattered rock replaced the forest and open landscape we were in before. The few trees were towering, with battered bark and no foliage. We trekked up one more snow covered incline…
And we arrived at Lake Aloha. It was frigid, the area was blanketed in snow, and the lake was mostly frozen over, to our surprise. The scene was beautiful. Aloha’s small islands were surrounded by snow-covered ice. Barren rock bordered the lake on our eastern side; tall snow covered mountains rose across the lake on the western side. It was windy and cold. We set up camp on rock, behind whatever would block the wind for us. We got warm, I got to use my Platypus Gravityworks for the first time, and for the rest of the day, we enjoyed each other’s company, and the Desolation.
