Cherry Lake - Toulumne County, California

Visited on 9/21/2018, Jeff and I loaded up our dogs, Summer and Skye for a day adventure to the back country of Yosemite National Park.  We visited three lakes, two actually located within the National Park boundary and one in the adjacent Stanislaus National Forest of Northern California.  Cherry Lake is located just outside the Yosemite National Park boundary and was our second stop.  Cherry Lake (also known as Lake Lloyd) at an elevation of 4,660 feet above sea level, is an artificial lake in the Stanislaus National Forest of Tuolumne County, California, about 25 miles east of the city of Sonora. It is at an elevation of 4,700 feet on the western side of the Sierra Nevada, and lies just outside the western boundary of Yosemite National Park. The lake has a surface size of 1,535 acres and is formed by Cherry Valley Dam on Cherry Creek.

The East and West forks of Cherry Creek combine just a couple of miles before reaching the lake, while the North Fork joins the East Fork about 10 miles earlier. All three forks begin in the Emigrant Wilderness and all of them flow roughly southwest. The North Fork's source is Emigrant Lake, which is at an elevation of 8,800 feet. The East Fork's source is a couple of miles southwest of the Mono County line and flows into Huckleberry Lake several miles later. The East and North forks meet several miles downstream of the lake. There are no lakes on the West Fork. Eleanor Creek, which forms Lake Eleanor, flows into Cherry Creek several miles downstream from Cherry Valley Dam. Lake Eleanor is another Hetch Hetchy Project facility. Cherry Creek flows into the Tuolumne River several miles later.

The dam is composed of earth and rock-fill and has a height of 315 feet above the original streambed. It was built by San Francisco City and County and the Modesto Irrigation District and Turlock Irrigation District.  It was completed in 1956. The lake stores water for the Hetch Hetchy Project, which supplies drinking water to the San Francisco Bay Area, Modesto and Turlock districts. Recreation available at the lake includes, boating, skiing, swimming and fishing. Human contact with the water is allowed because the water has to be filtered anyway. Water from the lake powers the Dion R. Holm Power Plant, a 165 MW hydroelectric facility.