TR: A modest adventure in the Grouse Lakes roadless area, Jul 31 - Aug 2, 2023
Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2024 12:03 pm
This is my report of a solo 2 night backpack trip in the Grouse Lakes roadless area of the Tahoe National Forest (just north of Interstate 80) from July 31 to August 2, 2023.
This report will span 5 posts in this thread in order to store all photos on HST (with the 12 photos per post limit).
Introduction
For the last few years, I have been backpacking primarily in the Yosemite high country. In January of 2023 I decided to try a more adventuresome trip from one of the eastside trailheads. I reserved a permit for the Paiute pass trailhead in the first week of August, 2023. The rest of my August was already booked for family activities. But as we all know, the snow kept falling all winter, and in the spring it wasn't melting very fast. By July it was clear that my original plan would not work because of too much snow for my tastes, so I canceled that permit reservation. Now I had to find an alternative. In addition, my week in August had shrunk a bit and I only had a few days available. My usual haunts in the Yosemite high country were also snowed in and not available, plus Tioga road was not even opened yet in July. I decided to look for something at a much lower elevation.
My thoughts went quickly to the Grouse Lakes Roadless Area just north of Interstate 80 in the Tahoe National Forest. This area lies between 6,000 and 8,000 feet elevation, but because it was heavily glaciated, it has a lot of bare granite and metamorphic peaks and many small lakes. This gives it the feeling of a higher elevation area. In both 2020 and 2021, I had done overnight trips into the Grouse Lakes area in June. Conditions were ideal on those trips. So I expected good conditions in early August in that same area during this heavy snow year of 2023. A bonus: no permit (other than the standard annual California campfire permit) is needed to backpack in the Grouse Lakes area. The trails in this area are also open to mountain bikes, though I have rarely seen them.
My family and I have done many day hikes and a few backpacks into the Grouse Lakes area over the last 40 years, and have owned a cabin near it for the last 25 years, so I am very familiar with the trails and the terrain. All the trails here are very popular, but there are fewer folks in the Beyers Lakes area, so I targeted that. Also, I like to do at least some cross-country travel on my backpack trips, so I decided to make a loop with a cross-country connection from Beyers Lakes around the Black Buttes to the Five Lakes basin, following roughly the same route I had done 8 years ago. Instead of the great adventure I originally contemplated for this summer, I was going to embark on a modest one.
Here is a map I left with my wife of the route I planned, overprinted in green, with some alternates overprinted in yellow. I kept pretty closely to the green route, except for some floundering around in the cross-country section. Note that this map is a section of a larger CalTopo map that I maintain with all my Sierra hikes. Solid colored lines are trails I have done; dotted colored lines are cross-country routes I have done; the red tent symbols are places I have camped.
Hikers and backpackers in the Grouse Lakes area are concentrated on the weekends. I started my trip by driving up to my mountain cabin in the town of Alta off I-80 on Sunday, July 30, so I could start hiking on Monday. I planned two nights in the backcountry, but brought enough food for 3 nights.
All distances and elevation changes shown here are from tracing my route on CalTopo and using its profile measurements. All hiking times are from my trail notes.
Day 1 - Monday, July 31
Stats: backpack 5 mi, 1600 feet elevation loss, 1000 feet elevation gain. About 4 hours actual hiking.
My optimal plan was to start and end at the Grouse Ridge trailhead, the highest one for the Grouse Lakes area, at about 7500 feet elevation. But while planning the trip, I wasn't sure if the road was even open - snow is not plowed; it has to melt out. My map shows an alternate start at the Blue Lake trailhead at 5800 feet elevation, which I knew was open, but that would add several less interesting miles to the loop. A few days before my hike, I managed to reach someone at the Forest Service district office who reassured me that the road was open to the Grouse Ridge trailhead, if perhaps "a bit rough".
So early on Monday morning, I drove from my cabin up I-80, then west on highway 20, then north on paved Bowman Road to the signed turnoff for the Grouse Ridge road, which runs for about 6 miles to end at the Grouse Ridge trailhead. This is a dirt and gravel Forest Service road. The road had many rough and washboarded sections, limiting speed to about 12 mph overall. I had no problems in my Subaru Outback and believe a normal sedan could make it up the road if driven with care to avoid rocks and deep ruts. I parked in a shaded flat area where the road tops out on a shallow saddle just before the campground spur (room to park at least 5 cars). The southern segment of the Grouse Ridge trail starts here. It took 50 minutes driving time from the Interstate 80/Highway 20 interchange to this parking spot.
A short use trail also starts at this saddle heading directly east up the slope to the top of Peak 7636. Before donning my backpack, I took a short jaunt up this trail for the view from the top. Most of the Grouse Lake roadless area can be seen from this viewpoint. There is also a good view of the rugged Sierra Buttes 15 air miles to the north, and beyond it, the shining white snows on Mount Lassen were just visible 90 miles away. The Sierra Crest south to the Crystal Range was also visible. The photo below looks directly east from Peak 7636. The Black Buttes, which I will round on a cross-country route, are to the far right.
I descended back to my car, ate some lunch, shouldered my always too-heavy backpack (about 32 pounds), and started descending the southern segment of the Grouse Ridge trail at 12:30 pm. It starts at a post (no sign) about 100 feet west down the road from the Peak 7636 trail. Temperatures were in the 60s with a good breeze. This Grouse Ridge trail ran steeply down the slope to the south through attractive mature red fir forest with little glades and flower meadows, like this one with a small stream.
I could see no evidence of the logging that has been done on this slope just west of this trail; the forest looked quite pristine. There are occasional views out to local peaks. About halfway down the slope, the trail starts to switchback to ease the grade. Still, this trail is steep overall and I would not want to ascend it; it has an elevation change of 1300 feet in only 1.5 miles. Eventually, the trail comes to a signed junction with the Blue Lake trail, heading west to its namesake. My trail continues east on a contour in a more open area with lots of exposed granite. A big rocky area just east of the junction provides a good view and a rest stop.
In less than a mile from the Blue Lake trail junction, the contouring Grouse Ridge trail comes to a ford of Granite Creek. In the past, I have come this far on a dayhike from Blue Lake in the spring to find Granite Creek roaring and impassable. This day, it was flowing only a few inches deep and easily crossed on exposed rocks. There are camping possibilities on the east side of the creek. Very quickly after the crossing, the trail comes to another junction, with broken signs strewn on the ground. The Grouse Ridge trail now heads down to Fordyce Creek and Eagle Lakes. The Beyers Lakes trail takes off to the east heading uphill. I went that way.
The trail up to Beyers Lakes climbs at a moderate grade through forest and meadows. Wildflowers were profuse, including many leopard lilies in the wet areas and a huge field of mules ears (but few flowers). After crossing a broad saddle, the trail drops a bit to a big wet meadow where it makes an easy jump across the outlet creek from Beyers Lakes.
The topo shows a lake on a bench just south of this creek crossing. I decided to ascend the open forested slope to the south to have a look at it. It was pleasant enough, as you can see in the photo below, but did not appear to have any good camping spots.
I returned back to the trail, which then started its final ascent to Beyers Lakes. From a previous trip, I knew that the trail ascends to a saddle in a rocky ridge just west of the lake, but then continues climbing to the south. A use trail descends to the lake and passes several well-worn campsites. I wanted something more wild, so about half way up the slope west of the lake, I left the trail and headed north cross-country to the far northwest corner of the main lake, where there is a second outlet. The terrain was convoluted and brushy in spots, but full of leopard lilies by the streams and mariposa lilies and penstemon on the slopes. I reached the lake at 5:30 pm in a flat open area which had a rock-free patch of gravel just big enough for my tent, shown in the photo below. I spent the rest of the day setting up camp, looking around my lake area, and eating a leisurely dinner.
During the entire day I neither saw nor heard other people, although from the lowest parts of the trail I could occasionally hear the muffled sounds of the I-80 freeway to the south. There were basically no mosquitoes all day; it was windy, which helped, but also dry. The trails I used had well-defined tread and were easy to follow. I also noticed some mountain bike tracks on these trails, all the way to Beyers Lakes. I did not see any grazing livestock along the route, but starting at about 6800 feet elevation on the Beyers Lakes trail, I did see occasional old dried-up cow pies. This prompted me to filter my water - usually I drink it straight from the lakes and streams in the highest Sierra. There were good wildflowers the whole way, but probably past peak.
The wind stopped about 7:30 pm and it became completely still. A few mosquitoes came out about 8 pm, but they were easily swatted away. The last sunlight on the mountain was at 8:10 pm, with lovely sunset colors in the clouds from 8:15 to 8:45 pm. Mosquitoes got more numerous at dusk and I probably got a couple of bites. I think it had been too warm for them earlier. It was still in the 60s at dusk. I saw many small rings on the lake at dusk from fish rising. I went to bed at 9:30 pm and was immediately bothered by cramps in my hamstring muscles. A frog or two croaked all night to keep me company.
All in all, I had a very pleasant day of hiking in solitude through forests and wildflowers, with views of nearby mountains and canyons under mostly blue skies, ending at a nice camp by a lovely lake. Great day.
To be continued ...
This report will span 5 posts in this thread in order to store all photos on HST (with the 12 photos per post limit).
Introduction
For the last few years, I have been backpacking primarily in the Yosemite high country. In January of 2023 I decided to try a more adventuresome trip from one of the eastside trailheads. I reserved a permit for the Paiute pass trailhead in the first week of August, 2023. The rest of my August was already booked for family activities. But as we all know, the snow kept falling all winter, and in the spring it wasn't melting very fast. By July it was clear that my original plan would not work because of too much snow for my tastes, so I canceled that permit reservation. Now I had to find an alternative. In addition, my week in August had shrunk a bit and I only had a few days available. My usual haunts in the Yosemite high country were also snowed in and not available, plus Tioga road was not even opened yet in July. I decided to look for something at a much lower elevation.
My thoughts went quickly to the Grouse Lakes Roadless Area just north of Interstate 80 in the Tahoe National Forest. This area lies between 6,000 and 8,000 feet elevation, but because it was heavily glaciated, it has a lot of bare granite and metamorphic peaks and many small lakes. This gives it the feeling of a higher elevation area. In both 2020 and 2021, I had done overnight trips into the Grouse Lakes area in June. Conditions were ideal on those trips. So I expected good conditions in early August in that same area during this heavy snow year of 2023. A bonus: no permit (other than the standard annual California campfire permit) is needed to backpack in the Grouse Lakes area. The trails in this area are also open to mountain bikes, though I have rarely seen them.
My family and I have done many day hikes and a few backpacks into the Grouse Lakes area over the last 40 years, and have owned a cabin near it for the last 25 years, so I am very familiar with the trails and the terrain. All the trails here are very popular, but there are fewer folks in the Beyers Lakes area, so I targeted that. Also, I like to do at least some cross-country travel on my backpack trips, so I decided to make a loop with a cross-country connection from Beyers Lakes around the Black Buttes to the Five Lakes basin, following roughly the same route I had done 8 years ago. Instead of the great adventure I originally contemplated for this summer, I was going to embark on a modest one.
Here is a map I left with my wife of the route I planned, overprinted in green, with some alternates overprinted in yellow. I kept pretty closely to the green route, except for some floundering around in the cross-country section. Note that this map is a section of a larger CalTopo map that I maintain with all my Sierra hikes. Solid colored lines are trails I have done; dotted colored lines are cross-country routes I have done; the red tent symbols are places I have camped.
Hikers and backpackers in the Grouse Lakes area are concentrated on the weekends. I started my trip by driving up to my mountain cabin in the town of Alta off I-80 on Sunday, July 30, so I could start hiking on Monday. I planned two nights in the backcountry, but brought enough food for 3 nights.
All distances and elevation changes shown here are from tracing my route on CalTopo and using its profile measurements. All hiking times are from my trail notes.
Day 1 - Monday, July 31
Stats: backpack 5 mi, 1600 feet elevation loss, 1000 feet elevation gain. About 4 hours actual hiking.
My optimal plan was to start and end at the Grouse Ridge trailhead, the highest one for the Grouse Lakes area, at about 7500 feet elevation. But while planning the trip, I wasn't sure if the road was even open - snow is not plowed; it has to melt out. My map shows an alternate start at the Blue Lake trailhead at 5800 feet elevation, which I knew was open, but that would add several less interesting miles to the loop. A few days before my hike, I managed to reach someone at the Forest Service district office who reassured me that the road was open to the Grouse Ridge trailhead, if perhaps "a bit rough".
So early on Monday morning, I drove from my cabin up I-80, then west on highway 20, then north on paved Bowman Road to the signed turnoff for the Grouse Ridge road, which runs for about 6 miles to end at the Grouse Ridge trailhead. This is a dirt and gravel Forest Service road. The road had many rough and washboarded sections, limiting speed to about 12 mph overall. I had no problems in my Subaru Outback and believe a normal sedan could make it up the road if driven with care to avoid rocks and deep ruts. I parked in a shaded flat area where the road tops out on a shallow saddle just before the campground spur (room to park at least 5 cars). The southern segment of the Grouse Ridge trail starts here. It took 50 minutes driving time from the Interstate 80/Highway 20 interchange to this parking spot.
A short use trail also starts at this saddle heading directly east up the slope to the top of Peak 7636. Before donning my backpack, I took a short jaunt up this trail for the view from the top. Most of the Grouse Lake roadless area can be seen from this viewpoint. There is also a good view of the rugged Sierra Buttes 15 air miles to the north, and beyond it, the shining white snows on Mount Lassen were just visible 90 miles away. The Sierra Crest south to the Crystal Range was also visible. The photo below looks directly east from Peak 7636. The Black Buttes, which I will round on a cross-country route, are to the far right.
I descended back to my car, ate some lunch, shouldered my always too-heavy backpack (about 32 pounds), and started descending the southern segment of the Grouse Ridge trail at 12:30 pm. It starts at a post (no sign) about 100 feet west down the road from the Peak 7636 trail. Temperatures were in the 60s with a good breeze. This Grouse Ridge trail ran steeply down the slope to the south through attractive mature red fir forest with little glades and flower meadows, like this one with a small stream.
I could see no evidence of the logging that has been done on this slope just west of this trail; the forest looked quite pristine. There are occasional views out to local peaks. About halfway down the slope, the trail starts to switchback to ease the grade. Still, this trail is steep overall and I would not want to ascend it; it has an elevation change of 1300 feet in only 1.5 miles. Eventually, the trail comes to a signed junction with the Blue Lake trail, heading west to its namesake. My trail continues east on a contour in a more open area with lots of exposed granite. A big rocky area just east of the junction provides a good view and a rest stop.
In less than a mile from the Blue Lake trail junction, the contouring Grouse Ridge trail comes to a ford of Granite Creek. In the past, I have come this far on a dayhike from Blue Lake in the spring to find Granite Creek roaring and impassable. This day, it was flowing only a few inches deep and easily crossed on exposed rocks. There are camping possibilities on the east side of the creek. Very quickly after the crossing, the trail comes to another junction, with broken signs strewn on the ground. The Grouse Ridge trail now heads down to Fordyce Creek and Eagle Lakes. The Beyers Lakes trail takes off to the east heading uphill. I went that way.
The trail up to Beyers Lakes climbs at a moderate grade through forest and meadows. Wildflowers were profuse, including many leopard lilies in the wet areas and a huge field of mules ears (but few flowers). After crossing a broad saddle, the trail drops a bit to a big wet meadow where it makes an easy jump across the outlet creek from Beyers Lakes.
The topo shows a lake on a bench just south of this creek crossing. I decided to ascend the open forested slope to the south to have a look at it. It was pleasant enough, as you can see in the photo below, but did not appear to have any good camping spots.
I returned back to the trail, which then started its final ascent to Beyers Lakes. From a previous trip, I knew that the trail ascends to a saddle in a rocky ridge just west of the lake, but then continues climbing to the south. A use trail descends to the lake and passes several well-worn campsites. I wanted something more wild, so about half way up the slope west of the lake, I left the trail and headed north cross-country to the far northwest corner of the main lake, where there is a second outlet. The terrain was convoluted and brushy in spots, but full of leopard lilies by the streams and mariposa lilies and penstemon on the slopes. I reached the lake at 5:30 pm in a flat open area which had a rock-free patch of gravel just big enough for my tent, shown in the photo below. I spent the rest of the day setting up camp, looking around my lake area, and eating a leisurely dinner.
During the entire day I neither saw nor heard other people, although from the lowest parts of the trail I could occasionally hear the muffled sounds of the I-80 freeway to the south. There were basically no mosquitoes all day; it was windy, which helped, but also dry. The trails I used had well-defined tread and were easy to follow. I also noticed some mountain bike tracks on these trails, all the way to Beyers Lakes. I did not see any grazing livestock along the route, but starting at about 6800 feet elevation on the Beyers Lakes trail, I did see occasional old dried-up cow pies. This prompted me to filter my water - usually I drink it straight from the lakes and streams in the highest Sierra. There were good wildflowers the whole way, but probably past peak.
The wind stopped about 7:30 pm and it became completely still. A few mosquitoes came out about 8 pm, but they were easily swatted away. The last sunlight on the mountain was at 8:10 pm, with lovely sunset colors in the clouds from 8:15 to 8:45 pm. Mosquitoes got more numerous at dusk and I probably got a couple of bites. I think it had been too warm for them earlier. It was still in the 60s at dusk. I saw many small rings on the lake at dusk from fish rising. I went to bed at 9:30 pm and was immediately bothered by cramps in my hamstring muscles. A frog or two croaked all night to keep me company.
All in all, I had a very pleasant day of hiking in solitude through forests and wildflowers, with views of nearby mountains and canyons under mostly blue skies, ending at a nice camp by a lovely lake. Great day.
To be continued ...