The first mile of the road, crossing two dikes or dams on the south side of the lake, is narrow and curvy, but as you get into fir forest and start climbing the road widens and becomes somewhat straighter. It climbs slowly up crest of a forested ridge, with occasional views opening out ahead, sometimes toward the Crystal Range, sometimes toward the hills west of Carson Pass. In early season (July), keep a sharp watch out for rocks that have fallen onto the road during the winter where the road passes through raw cuts along this relatively new highway.
In about fifteen miles you pass the junction with the Silver Fork Road, which leads back north to Kyburz on Highway 50, and in about five more miles you reach trans-Sierra highway 88 at the entrance to what appears to be a now defunct ski resort at Iron Mountain. Turn left onto 88.
Along the next mile or so you have a choice of views. Only a few hundred yards along the road there's a parking area on the left from which you get a marvellous view over vast expanses of forest and granite toward the Crystal Range and the lands to the west of those mountains which demarcate Desolation Wilderness on the west. Less than a mile further, the well-signed Shot Rock Vista Point on your right gives expansive views to the east.
You now drop downhill for a couple of miles until you reach the north side of Silver Lake, site of three popular resorts, including one named for Kit Carson, an old western scout not unknown in this area. Beyond the lake you drive for about a mile through forest of pine, fir and aspen; watch for the local forest service campground and a convenient rest area. You then climb up around a wide nose of land, the north end of Thunder Mountain, and drop down again to Kirkwood Meadows, site of a popular ski resort, summertime riding stables, and an old inn and cabins rebuilt after a fire a few years ago.
From Kirkwood Meadows a short climb uphill brings you to a bridge below a dam; as you reach the far end you find yourself looking (to the right) over Caples Lake, site of yet another resort -- named, unimaginatively enough, "Caples Lake Resort". Caples Lake was once, before the intervention of PG&E, "Twin Lakes".
Drive another mile and a half or so up the road, keeping close watch to the right for the turnoff sign to Woods Lake forest ervice campground; you'll find this about half a mile beyond the highway maintenance station (on the left). Turn right down the paved road and follow it for almost two miles, being sure to turn right again on the pavement at the overflow camping area. As you enter the main campground, keep on straight ahead toward the picnic area. You can park in any parking space there. N.B.: When we arrived at 9:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning, every space but one was already taken, mainly by hikers. Try to arrive early.
Warning: While this is a short hike and the average uphill grade along it would be classified as, at worst, "moderate," you should remember that you are hiking at between 8000 and 9000 feet above sea level. This means that the pressure of the atmosphere here, and more particularly the partial pressure of oxygen in your lungs, is no more than 75 percent what you are used to in the Bay Area or Sacramento. If you have not had time (a night should be enough) to become acclimated to the altitude, you should remember to walk slowly and breathe fairly deeply. If you find yourself getting out of breath, or your heart beating overfast, slow down a bit. Winnemucca Lake isn't going anywhere.
(Having given this warning, let me add that I spent some time at Winnemucca Lake talking with a lady who had just hiked up the same trail ... with her great-granddaughter.)
About fifty yards back along the road from the picnic area rest rooms, you'll find a bridge crossing Woods Lake's outflow stream, which is just east of the road. Cross the bridge. Stop and check out the sign on the other side; it contains a list of some of the rules that apply to the officially-designated Mokelumne Wilderness, in which Winnemucca Lake is located. Most of these don't apply to you unless you have your dog with you. N.B.: While many wilderness areas require that everyone entering them have a permit, you don't need one to hike to Winnemucca Lake unless you plan to camp there overnight.
An official-looking trail leads off to your right from the sign; a less official-looking one climbs straight ahead through a granite outcrop. Take the latter. This will start you off on the right foot, climbing up through a dry, open forest consisting primarily of lodgepole pines and hunks of granite lying around.
As you climb, in July and August you should notice a fair number of flowers of various types growing under the trees. Off to the right you may get an occasional glimpse of Woods Lake, but it is by and large fairly well hidden by both forest and rock bluffs. You may start noticing that not all the trees are lodgepoles; there are a fair number of hemlocks, and the occasion Jeffrey pine. If you are observant, you may see a juniper or two; there is a marvellous, and very ancient, specimen growing high on a rock outcrop to your left somewhere between quarter and half a mile up the trail.
Wildlife is, as usual, less easily seen, but it is there. As we were coming back down the trail and my son, who was running ahead of us as usual, turned to watch us coming down, a deer came out of the woods and trotted across the trail only a few feet behind him. Naturally, he was too busy to see.
About half a mile up the trail you'll find an arrastra. This is a rock-lined disk-form depression in the ground, used in the last century to grind ore before separating out gold or silver. The forest service sign describing it attributes it to "early Mexicans," which is perhaps something of an exaggeration; the Aztecs, Toltecs and Mayas had nothing to do with this particular historical site, and even European-derived Mexicans had been around for about three and a half centuries when this was built. If you want to see a (somewhat larger) arrastra in action, rent the film Conan the Barbarian; the device on which Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing the work of six mules early in the film is an arrastra.
Just beyond the arrastra site, the forest thins out dramatically, opening into near-timberline alpine meadows. You will find that you are traveling along the side of a wide slope extending up from a chuckling stream which links Winnemucca Lake with Woods Lake. The entire meadow, the better part of a mile long, is a patchwork of color; when we were there, the predominant hue was orange, for the huge mass of Indian paintbrush growing there -- in fact, the upper part of the slope to the left was a long strip of orange. I was reminded, seeing it, of an August visit in 1983, when my daughter Esther, then not quite four years old, wanted to know who it was who came there to water this garden.
You make your way gradually upward through this meadow, paralleling the stream, at times coming close enough to it to descend and take a drink, if you want to chance giardia (about which I have written elsewhere). On a hot day, you might also want to take a breather in the shade of the few copses of trees growing at various spots through this meadow.
As you get higher, stop every now and then, turn around and look back the way you have come. When you are above the tops of the trees in the forest through which you've just come, you'll get some magnificent views of the open slopes and meadows of the hills to the north of highway 88 -- Carson Peak and Red Lake Peak. Note in particular the low pass directly north of you (you'll shortly be high enough to see over it). This is the trail that leads fifteen miles north from Carson Pass to highway 50 at Echo Summit by way of Showers Lake -- a wonderful, if somewhat tiring, walk.
Watch the trees ahead of you along the trail to the south. Up ahead of you, some stand straight and tall; others seem to be growing at an angle out of a granite slope that leads up toward the massive, looming summit of Round Top, which overshadows everything here. The first group are on your side of Winnemucca Lake; the second are in the slopes of the glacial corrie behind it. You are closer to the Lake than you think. You are also below it, so you can't see it...
...until you come up over the lip of the lake and find yourself at a junction with the Tahoe-Yosemite Trail. The like is lying in the sun just ahead of you. Near the trail junction there's a wide open flat space with flat granite rocks and a couple of fallen tree trunks, a most excellent campsite, which is probably why the forest service has set up a "No Camping" post there (you are no longer allowed to camp within 100 feet of any lake or stream in the wilderness area, and this great place to rest and have lunch is right on the edge of the lake). Sit down in the sun and relax for half an hour or so before you start back down the trail to Woods Lake.
You can follow the Tahoe-Yosemite trail north to Carson Pass, if you have arranged for the person who dropped you at Woods Lake to continue a mile or so east to the parking area there and pick you up. This is a relatively level trail, not terribly inspiring, though with nice views of Elephant's Back, a huge stony mound east of the trail. Just beyond Frog Lake, the trail drops down a slope to the parking lot, where you can stop and visit the (topless) obelisk built by E. Clampus Vitus in memory of Snowshoe Johnson. And if you get there and suddenly remember that you drove yourself and your car is at Woods Lake, well, it's only a mile or so down the hill (and in the eastern entrance) to the parking lot at the picnic area.
A more interesting way back is a loop trip to the west. From the junction with the T-Y trail, you will see a trail winding westward up the slope west of the lake toward a relatively high pass to your right; near its beginning, there's what appears to be a permanent snowfield where any kids you have with you can stop and play. Climb up this open slope to the pass -- the few trees along here are low and scrubby, and provide little shade. From the pass it's a short drop down to Round Top Lake, another glacial tarn similar to Winnemucca Lake, though perhaps somewhat smaller.
If you have several days or weeks, you can continue east from here along the T-Y trail, shortly climbing over a pass west of Round Top and dropping steeply to Fourth of July Lake and then angling down a sage-covered slope toward the east and into the deep, narrow canyon of lovely Summit City Creek...
Or, if you have little time but lots of ambition, you can turn south along the trail at the east side of Round Top Lake and work your way up toward a high saddle west of the summit of Round Top; from this point you can climb -- with some trepidation -- to a summit a thousand feet higher than anything in the immediate area and magnificent views. (I got within a few feet of the summit once, but -- facing a rather steep rocky slab with some loose sand and gravel on it -- decided that discretion was the better part of valor...).
Chances are, though, that you are ready to go back to Woods Lake, so find a trail leading north from the north side of the lake and follow it downward. Eventually this trail will curve back to the east around the rocky crest between Winnemucca and Woods Lakes. Shortly after you get back into forest the trail deviates from a former course; at one point it led through an abandoned gold mining operation, but a few years ago the operation stopped being abandoned -- thanks to an increase in the price of gold -- and the trail was rerouted somewhat to the south of the old route; you may see a sign or two warning you to stay out of the gold miners' property, or else. Eventually the trail will drop you into the upper part of the campground at Woods Lake.
Minor hazard warning: By this time afternoon will have rolled around, and you may start hearing rolls of thunder in a suddenly cloudly sky. Afternoon thunderstorms are common in the Sierra. They aren't particularly dangerous as long as you stay out of exposed areas, like open granite summits. In any case, they are usually widely scattered, and the chances of having one actually drench you are relatively slim.
Don Harlow
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The adjoining map is excerpted, via Jeffrey P. Schaffer's The Tahoe Sierra, from maps available from the United States Geological Service at the usual outlets. The Schaffer book is available from Wilderness Press in Berkeley, CA, for $14.95. The large sans-serif numbers refer to hikes described by Schaffer in the book. |
Don Harlow <don@donh.vip.best.com>