Lake Aloha - Paradise in the Sierras
High in California’s Sierra Nevada, tucked deep in the Desolation Wilderness, lies a shimmering granite basin scattered with crystal-clear water and dozens of small islands. This is Lake Aloha — and there’s no better way to explore it than by packraft.
Lake Aloha and Desolation Wilderness in Tahoe are a very special and meaningful place for me. I spent a few years guiding backpacking trips in Lake Tahoe and one of my favorite trips was leading a group of 15 kids up to Lake Aloha on a 5 day trip. Since I was guiding I wasn’t able to bring a packraft up with me to explore the water, so it’s been on my list to go back and do for a while. I moved from Tahoe to Oregon about 7 years ago making it even more illusive. It’s a little hard to get permits to hike up there, especially in the summer. But we were luckily enough to grab one for an early fall trip.
Me, Becca and our pup Hobbes hiked up to Lake Aloha in Desolation Wilderness just outside South Lake Tahoe. We stayed at my brothers house in Truckee the night before. We woke up early, stopped at our favorite little coffee shop Wild Cherries and then headed an hour south down the west shore of Lake Tahoe, past emerald bay and then to Echo Lake. We packed most of our stuff the night before but we had to rearrange a few things and tuck a way a few extra snacks at the trail head.
We headed out on the trail at 12:30. We hiked 3 miles along lower and upper echo lakes passing some beautiful giant granite cliffs.
We made a quick stop at the water taxi dock and had a late lunch. My favorite part is you are a few miles from everything and there’s a random phone booth in the middle of the forest. The water taxi company put it there so you can call the store and request for they come pick you up. This is a great way to shave off a few miles of trail to get you up to Lake Aloha faster, especially if you only have time for a day trip. We continued up the trail and finally entered into Desolation Wilderness.
We passed several small lakes along the way (and our pup made sure he swam in every single one). After a few more hours of hiking we finally laid eyes on Lake Aloha and all the huge surrounding peaks.
We wondered along the lake side and picked out the perfect campsite tucked into some boulders at 5:30. We headed down to the lake to filter some water and let Hobbes get one more quick dip. We set up our tent and sleeping bags and then made dinner while sharing a beer from a local brewery and watching an amazing sunset.
The next morning we woke up made coffee and some breakfast. We stashed away all our gear, zipped up our tent and hid the bear box away from our campsite. We grabbed our packrafts, paddles and pfds and headed to the water. Becca brought her Hornet-Lite and I took my Rogue-Lite, both are super light and perfect for this trip.
Since we had the whole day to explore we decided to circumnavigate the entire lake. We started clockwise and paddled over to a small patch of snow tucked away on a little hillside. We hiked for a bit letting Hobbes roll around in the snow.
Lake Aloha isn’t just one big open lake, it’s a labyrinth of inlets, channels, granite peninsulas, and scattered islands. Making such a fun spot to explore
We found ourselves paddling into almost every little cove and portaging over rocks to quickly check out more spots along the shoreline. After a quick lunch break we hopped back into the packrafts and headed out into the open water.
We ended up in a little bay at the end of the lake. We decided to hike the last mile or so back to our camp instead of paddle since we would have had to paddle almost 2 more miles to get back due to some bays and inlets blocking a straight passage. But that’s the beauty of the packrafts, you aren’t locked in to going back to the same spot you started.
After a full day of paddling we decided to hike back down instead of staying an extra night. We deflated the boats, packed them away grabbed the rest of our camping gear and hit the trail at 4.
We hiked down and just the same as on the way up our pup made sure to swim every chance he got. We arrived at lower Echo lake and watched the sunset behind us but we still had over a mile to go. We and got back to the car at 8:15 just in time before having to use our headlamps. We stopped at a Thai restaurant for a huge dinner and then drove back up north to Truckee.
If you are short on time or want an easier trip, you can take a water taxi and skip 3 miles of the hike. Another really cool option if you have friends in the area that can give you a shuttle is staring at echo lake and then hiking up to Lake Aloha and then down to Fallen Leaf Lake which is about the same mileage we did but not an out and back so you get to see more wilderness. Lake Aloha is also along the Tahoe Rim Trail which is a huge 200 mile trail that circumnavigates the lake. So there’s plenty of options to continue further north or south and turn it into a several day trip. But Lake Aloha is the gem of Desolation Wilderness.
Got more time to kill around Tahoe? Check out our other blog about packrafting to Fannete Island in Emerald Bay.
-Tristan, Becca & Hobbes