Island Lake
Hike Review
Mike, Harmon, Cassie, and I went for a two-night backpacking trip to Island Lake (from Carr Lake).
On the first day, we hiked from Carr Lake to Island Lake on the Round Lake Trail, which was only a mile and a half with a few hundred feet of elevation gain. The hike was rather pretty with lots of shade, trees, and views of five different lakes. The hike started off on a double-track fire road, but it quickly switched to a single-track trail at Feeley Lake. There were a few parts of the trail that branched, but they quickly joined back; I was impressed by the fact that the trails were in such good condition—there were no downed trees blocking the trail, nor any other major obstacles. We took this trail back on the last day.
On the second day, Cassie and I hiked north following the Crooked Lake Trail. The hike was again pretty with lots of trees. The trail was single-track (and dusty) the whole time. We also hiked down to the southern end of Island Lake, with the Absher boys joining us. Because we were not on a major trail, but to a specific part of the lake, the trail was harder to navigate, but we made it without any injuries.
We arrived in the afternoon on a Saturday, and the parking lot was completely packed. We found two open spots, where we promptly parked our vehicles. We wouldn’t have been completely screwed, however, as we could have parallel-parked on Feeley Lake Road. On Monday morning, when we hiked out, the parking lot was less than half full.
There were four portable potties near the parking lot, which was nice. There were no trash receptacles, however.
Camp Review
We camped at a previously used campsite near an unnamed lake to the west of Island Lake. Because it was an existing site, I thought its proximity to the lake was fine, but sitting here after the trip, I now see that we were too close to the water by 15 yards or so. It’s on me as I misremembered the rules about dispersed camping spots.
The site had multiple spots that were pretty level and well-used by previous campers. We were surrounded by trees that gave us a bit more warmth, protected us from the wind, and gave us lots of shade.
There was an established campfire ring, though someone previously had a too-large a fire, with there being some burnt wood outside of the campfire ring. Just a note that we did check the Tahoe National Forest site and there was a fire restriction in place, so we did not start a fire, though there were plenty of others who had fires going.
Maybe because this is a popular area and people love camping near lakes, but there seemed to be dozens of campsites all around the lake (with many breaking the 100ft distance to the lake rule).
We cooked and ate our food more than 150’ away from the lake.
What I Learned
We brought fishing poles and we fished on days one and two. We saw numerous baby catfish on the first day and Harmon even caught one. We threw it back as it was so small. On the second day, Harmon caught a Sierra Garter Snake. He wasn’t sure if it was venomous or not, but he got the snake unhooked and threw it back into Feeley Lake with the smoothness that would have made the Crocodile Hunter proud. At least that’s what I imagine in my head, since I was there only in spirit.
I usually do not carry luxuries backpacking (to keep the pack as light as possible), but because the hike was so short, we carried a folding chair and a LED string lamp. The folding chair broke after 15 minutes of use, so that was a bust. The string lamp was rather nice, and it’s something I’ll probably carry in the future.
Cassie and I tried out eating a Knorr pasta side (Cheesy Cheddar), and it worked out fine for us. We added some dehydrated vegetables, slices of salami, and a packet of chorizo tuna. While it does take a while for the noodles to cook, it was much more cost-efficient than eating a freeze-dried meal. And it was good enough where I think we’ll add it to our standard rotation of peanut noodles, noodles with curry, and Mac and Cheese.
On most backpacking trips, I like to stay busy with lots of hiking. However, with this being Mike’s first time backpacking recreationally and Harmon’s love of fishing, this backpacking trip ended up being much different than one of my usual backpacking trips. But what I learned was that this change of pace was nice in a different way. Much more whimsical and filled with different types of memories that I’ll treasure for a long time.
What Happened?
1.6 miles, 44 mins, 270 ft of ascent
1.4 miles, 34 mins, 49 ft of ascent
We had planned on a backpacking trip near Saddlebag Lake, near Mount Conness, but with just a few days to go, I saw the weather report and there being a 20-30% chance of thunderstorms. So, instead of risking lightning, we decided to rethink our plans and head more west, where the chance of rain dropped to zero. With the understanding that Mike and Harmon would be more comfortable hiking less than 600 ft of ascent and less than 4 miles, I found Island Lake as a viable option, especially with there being so many lakes for fishing. The crew was happy with the location, and we all agreed to change our sites towards a more westerly direction.
We drove in from Grouse Ridge and found that the road the Carr Lake was in was in great condition—just a dirt road really. I mean, we saw a ton of passenger cars at the parking lot. This was in contrast to the road to Grouse Ridge, where we only saw trucks due to one very undulating section of the road. At Carr Lake, we parked our cars in a very full parking lot, changed into our hiking clothes, weighed our packs, and started hiking to Island Lake.
Compared to many other backpacking trips, the hike ended as quickly as it started, as it was only a mile and a half to Island Lake. As we started to look for a campsite, a helpful camper stopped us and pointed us towards the unnamed lake to the west of Island Lake. And just a hundred yards or so off the main trail, we saw this glorious campsite that we ended up taking. Unfortunately, this is the aforementioned campsite that I should not have taken, but yeah, it was a really nice site.
After setting up our tents, we fished for a bit and had dinner before Cassie and I headed off for a short hike to Island Lake to take a look around and walk some more. We found the lake to be absolutely busy with campers just about everywhere. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised given that the parking lot was full, but I really thought with there being dozens of lakes within five miles, this particular lake would be less full. But that wasn’t the case. At least it wasn’t too loud, with no one blasting music or ruining the backcountry atmosphere. However, a few people had campfires going, even with the fire restriction in place.
After the walk, we talked for a bit and caught up some more before heading off to a local highpoint to lay down on granite slabs to watch the stars as I had seen somewhere that the Perseid meteor showers had just started. I think we were there for an hour or so and we counted a few shooting stars. We marveled at the tons of stars we could see, and all the satellites we could also make out. For better or worse, unlike the skies of the past, we found the night sky to be dynamic. We then went to sleep pretty soon after that.
I had only slept 4 hours the previous night, so I slept like a log, but Mike slept poorly and woke up early to fish with the morning light. He then saw a beautiful double rainbow over our little lake, before being driven back into his tent by a few small morning showers. I woke up after missing the rain and the rainbow and went for a quick fishing expedition to the west side of the little lake, where I discovered a few more amazing campsites, though I did not catch anything (not even a nibble). Cassie stayed back and painted the beautiful views around us as we kept our lazy morning going.
As it hit close to noon, we had lunch and our party of four splintered for the day. Cassie and I planned to venture north to see more lakes, and Mike and Harmon ventured back west to fish the lakes that we had passed by on the previous day.
4.2 miles, 2 hrs 9 mins, 738 ft (but GPS tracking was off when I swam)
Cassie and I meandered and swam around Island Lake on the way north and south—on the way north, we swam to the island in Island Lake; on the way south, I jumped into the lake repeatedly from a nice jumping spot. Going north, we eventually made our way to Crooked Lake, where Cassie painted the scenery while I read. We could have gone further, but we both were tired from the elevation. So we made our way back to our campsite, where we picked up the boys before heading to the southern end of Island Lake.
By this point, the boys had fished Feeley Lake, but only caught an unwanted snake. They also were thinking about getting to the inflatable boat I had at the back of the truck, but they felt that it was too hot, so they just fished from shore.
But we were all together now, and we made it to the southern end of Island Lake, where we swam, dove, and generally just had a great time. We swam for a while too, but the wind picked up, we got cold and hungry, and we headed back for a fortifying dinner.
After dinner, we spent the evening throwing rocks, skipping rocks, and practicing shot put. We were impressed by Mike’s ability to regularly get 10+ skips on his rocks, Harmon’s seemingly effortless ability to throw rocks super far, and Cassie’s ability to hit for the average as she batted rocks into the lake. We had a lot of laughs and we kept going until it got pretty dark, when we brushed our teeth and went to bed.
Unlike the first night, I think I went to sleep last, with me spending a lot of time reading before getting sleepy. Because I stayed up though, I got to listen to a rain shower and the wonderful noise they make against the taut rainfly. I did eventually get tired though and had another night of great sleep.
On the last day, we pretty much just woke up, drank hot chocolate (thanks to Cassie for making it for all of us), packed up, and hiked back to the car. We weren’t desperate to leave, but we didn’t want to get back home too late. And when we arrived at the parking lot, we found both cars undisturbed and with a whole lot more breathing room in the parking lot as more than half the cars were gone. We then re-measured the weight of our backpacks, gave each other deep hugs, and we drove back.
