Lake Britton - Shasta County, California

Jeff and I visited Lake Britton on our way up to Oregon to view the Solar Eclipse in totality on a week-long camping trip in our camper/truck with our dogs, Summer and Skye.  Prior to camping overnight in the North shore campground we visited Burney Falls.  Lake Britton, located in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, is at an elevation of 2,760 feet.  This 1,600 surface acre Lake has 18 shoreline miles and is nestled amid the evergreen forests of the Pit River.  The McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park has 853 acres stretching from Burney Falls along Burney Creek to the shoreline of Lake Britton.  Burney Creek is planted with trout weekly in season.  Burney Falls State Park was established in 1920, is not only one of the oldest in the California State Park System, but on e of the best facilities in Northern California.  Burney Falls, called by Teddy Roosevelt, "the eighth wonder of the world", is a very beautiful waterfall and very popular attraction in the area.



Jeff throwing a stick for Summer and Skye to retrieve near our campsite at the Lake.

This was our very first visit to Burney Falls.  It has been on our list to visit for a couple of years and I am glad we were able to view it at it's best!

The hike down to Burney Falls was enjoyable and the trail is paved the whole way down to the pool.  Just spectacular!

Informative sign along the trail that explains the water going over the waterfall comes from underground network of ancient river channels that originate from snowmelt from Burney Mountain nearby. 

Shasta Lake - Shasta County, California

Jeff and I have boated, camped and visited Shasta Lake several times over the years and we stopped briefly on our way back from Camp Sherman, Oregon when we were there with Jeff's brother and two nieces to view the Solar Eclipse in totality on a week-long camping trip in our camper/truck with our dogs, Summer and Skye.  Shasta Lake is at an elevation of 1,067 feet at the northern tip of the Sacramento Valley on Interstate 5.  This huge Lake has over 370 shoreline miles, one-third more than the San Francisco Bay.  The four main arms, Sacramento River, McCloud River, Squaw Creek and Pit River, encompass a total surface area of 29,500 acres, making this the largest man-made Lake in California.  The step shoreline is covered with tall pine trees.  There are caverns located on the northeastern shores of this Lake that you can take tours and the Shasta Dam is one of the largest dams in the country.



Lake Shasta has multiple houseboat docks and Jeff and I have rented a houseboat for the week and enjoyed our stay on the water with friends.

Bald Eagles and Ospreys frequent the waters above Shasta Lake.  This informational sign located at the Marina General Store explains the difference between Bald Eagles and Ospreys.  Ospreys look like Bald Eagles but are much smaller in size and have different markings.

Lake McCloud - Shasta & Siskiyou Counties, California

Jeff and I visited Lake McCloud on our way up to Oregon to view the Solar Eclipse in totality on a week-long camping trip in our camper/truck with our dogs, Summer and Skye.  This lake is located about 10 miles south of the town of McCloud on the southeast base of Mount Shasta.  This reservoir had the least amount of water left in it of all the lakes we have visited this year.  Located at 3,000 feet above sea level, the surface area of this 520 Lake belongs to Pacific Gas & Electric Company and the surrounding land belongs to the Hearst Corporation.  The Dam on the McCloud River was constructed by PG&E in 1965.  The U.S. Forest Service was deeded a narrow strip of land between the road and the high water mark from Tarantula Gulch to Star City Creek.  The step shoreline provides a beautiful setting for the Lake with pine trees towering above the rock terrain.  Prior to visiting this Lake we made our way to the three waterfalls on the McCloud River, Upper, Middle and Lower Falls, with the middle falls being the most spectacular of the three.  The McCloud river feeds into Lake McCloud.

Jeff and I visiting Lower McCloud Falls early in the morning before any other visitors were at the park.

McCloud Middle Falls - a beautiful, peaceful falls.  This one was my favorite.

 Nice hike down to the Upper McCloud Falls, nice and cool, very quiet walk.

Lake Siskiyou - Siskiyou County, California

Jeff and I visited Lake Siskiyou on our way up to Oregon to view the Solar Eclipse in totality on a week long camping trip in our camper/truck with our dogs, Summer and Skye.  Lake Siskiyou is a very beautiful lake located just west of the town of Lake Shasta City in northern California at the southwest base of Mount Shasta off of Interstate 5.  Lake Siskiyou is a reservoir that was formed by the Box Canyon Dam.  It is a very small deep blue lake that is only 430 acres located at an elevation 3,185 of feet above sea level.

We traveled down W.A.Barr Road to get to the Lake.  Jeff's last name is Barr and his late father's name was Walter A. Barr.  We felt that he was definitely with us on our journey up to these two beautiful lakes that day, thinking of you, Walter.

 

Lake Shastina - Siskiyou County, California

Jeff and I visited Lake Shastina on our way up to Oregon to view the Solar Eclipse in totality on a week long camping trip in our camper/truck with our dogs, Summer and Skye.  Lake Shastina is a reservoir developed to dam the Shasta River northwest of Weed, California just west of Highway 97.  Lake Shastina is a 1,850 acre lake located at an elevation 2,794 of feet above sea level at the northwest base of Mount Shasta.  

This reservoir is nestled in a valley, northeast of the small town of Weed, this can be a delightful paddler’s paradise. Magnificent low foothills covered with stands of a trees and colorful lake side vegetation along the shoreline provide spectacular visual displays.

Sweeping views of Mt. Shasta can be seen from the lake while paddling on the lake. The lake is open to all types of boating. The strong wind conditions draw windsurfing and sailing enthusiasts. Located close to the lake is a primitive campground when we visited, but now it is a day-use only for picnics and overnight camping is no longer allowed.

This hike is dog friendly.

Meiss Lake - Siskiyou County, California

Jeff and I visited Meiss Lake on our way up to Oregon to view the Solar Eclipse in totality on a week long camping trip in our camper/truck with our dogs, Summer and Skye.  Meiss Lake is a marshy lake located along the most northern part of California near the Oregon State line along highway 97 in the Butte Valley Wildlife Area.  Meiss Lake is a 3,750 natural endorheic shallow warm lake located at an elevation 4,236 of feet above sea level. In order to get to the lake we had to venture off the main highway onto a gravel road through a farming area.  When we approached the lake from the south a group of cattle thought we were their feeding truck and came running up to our camper!  The lake is a remnant of a larger lake that occupied the entire valley when temperatures were cooler and is fed seasonally by several creeks in Butte Valley. Although Meiss Lake is in the closed Butte Creek Valley basin, in wetter times it undoubtedly flowed over a low divide into Rock Creek and then into the Klamath River east of Copco Lake. A pumping station was installed during the 1964 floods to evacuate floodwaters into Rock Creek as protection for nearby croplands and wildlife habitat wetlands. 



The cattle thought that our Camper was their feeding truck and all came stampeding across the pasture to us!

On the southern edge of Meiss Lake is the Butte Valley Wildlife Area entrance to the Lake.

Indian Tom Lake - Siskiyou County, California

Jeff and I visited Lower Klamath Lake on our way up to Oregon to view the Solar Eclipse in totality on a week long camping trip in our camper/truck with our dogs, Summer and Skye.  Lower Klamath Lake is a very marshy lake located along the most northern part of California near the Oregon State line along highway 161.  Lower Klamath Lake is a 500 natural alkaline shallow lake located at an elevation 4,088 of feet above sea level.  The lake is a remnant of a larger lake that occupied the entire valley when temperatures were cooler and is fed seasonally by several creeks in Butte Valley. The area around the lake was the home of the Modoc people prior to European contact. Indian Tom Lake is one of California's State Public Hunting Areas for duck and geese.

Indian Tom Lake is located at the corner of Highway 161 and Highway 97.

Lower Klamath Lake - Siskiyou County, California

Jeff and I visited Lower Klamath Lake on our way up to Oregon to view the Solar Eclipse in totality on a week long camping trip in our camper/truck with our dogs, Summer and Skye.  Lower Klamath Lake is a very marshy lake located along the most northern part of California near the Oregon State line along highway 161.  Lower Klamath Lake is a 12,000 natural acre lake located at an elevation 4,140 of feet above sea level. At one time it was connected to Upper Klamath Lake located north in Oregon. It currently is used to hold overflow water for Klamath Project irrigation uses.  The Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge (est. 1908), which covers the northern part of the lake, extends from California into Oregon.  The area around the lake was in the homeland of the indigenous Modoc people, prior to mid−19th century Anglo−American immigration.  Before human engineering altered the upper Klamath Basin, water flowed from Upper Klamath Lake into Link River, a short stream that emptied into Lake Ewauna, the true headwaters of the Klamath River. During spring freshets, Lake Ewauna overflowed southward into Lower Klamath Lake, creating 94,000 acres of marshlands and one of the most prolific waterfowl breeding environments in North America. Early twentieth-century naturalist and photographer William L. Finley described Lower Klamath’s tule marshes and club-rushes as “the most extensive breeding ground in the West for all kinds of water birds,” including hundreds of fish-eating ospreys.  Non-Indian fur trappers who began passing through the upper basin in the 1820s reported that the Klamath and Modoc people harvested great numbers of sucker fish from the upper basin and gathered the eggs of swans and other water birds in the marshlands. In midsummer, families gathered lily seeds (wokas) that ripened in the marshes and collected material for making baskets. With the arrival of increasing numbers of whites in the 1870s, those seasonal rounds of gathering were disrupted, as farmers began grazing cattle and constructing irrigation ditches in the upper basin to raise crops on the arid but rich soils. The transformation of Lower Klamath accelerated when Congress passed the National Reclamation Act in 1902. Within three years, the new Reclamation Service authorized the Klamath Project, which straddled the Oregon-California state line.  The Klamath enterprise involved an elaborate scheme of dams, dikes, canals, and drainage ditches that eventually remade the landscape south and east of Klamath Falls. The newly constructed engineering design eliminated vast areas of marshland, including Lower Klamath Lake and Tule Lake to the southeast. The reclamation plan involved building a dike (using part of the existing Southern Pacific Railroad bed) to block the spring overflow from Lake Ewauna into Lower Klamath Lake.  The dewatering of Lower Klamath proceeded when the headgates through the railway embankment were shuttered in 1917. “Some 85,000 acres were dried up,” William Kittredge writes, and “by 1922 all that remained was a 365-acre pond.” To facilitate the conversion of wetlands for agricultural purposes, President Woodrow Wilson reduced the 80,000-acre Lower Klamath Lake National Wildlife Refuge, established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, to 53,600 acres in 1915.  The drained lakebed of Lower Klamath turned into a dusty waste of dried peat that burned annually into the 1930s. The Lower Klamath marshlands, however, gained a semblance of restoration, and water birds began to return in 1941 when engineers built a 6,000-foot tunnel from the Tule Lake Basin to deliver excess irrigation water to the refuge. Following World War II, farmers learned to leach the alkali through deep drains and began to grow profitable crops in Lower Klamath.  The expansion of the Klamath Reclamation Project at the turn of the twenty-first century forced new water allocations when excessive withdrawals ran into conflict with the Endangered Species Act and the prior appropriation rights of the Klamath tribes. The consequences have been continued conflict and the deaths of thousands of salmonids in the lower basin.

Lake Tahoe - El Dorado County, California

Visited 7/3/2017 - On a day trip with Jeff and our Chocolate Labradors, Summer and Skye we set out on a trip up to Echo Summit for a all-day hike up in Desolation Wilderness.  While I was hiking back to Lake Aloha I went to the top of the mountain overlooking Lake Tahoe in the distance and Fallen Leaf Lake in the foreground.  We live near Sacramento so Lake Tahoe is within 125 miles and we have visited the Lake many times.  Being one of the most famous lakes in the world, I have to agree it is a very beautiful alpine lake.  Jeff and I have both boated on the Lake and we each have our own scary stories of being out in the middle of the lake during sudden high wind storms and having a difficult time navigating back to the shore safely.  We have both snow-skied and cross country skied at several of the alpine resorts that surround the Lake. Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world with the deepest blue color to it, it has it's own crayon color....Tahoe Blue!  Lake Tahoe is the highest alpine lake in the United States and the 16th deepest and second largest alpine lake in the world! Commonly referred to as "Tahoe", or just "The Lake" by locals, beautiful blue Lake Tahoe is located in the Sierra Nevada between the great states of California and Nevada.  As you can see by the map below more of the Lake is located in California than in Nevada.  How big is Lake Tahoe?  Lake Tahoe has a surface elevation of 6,229 feet, is 22 miles long, 12 miles wide, has a shoreline 72 miles in length and a surface area of 191 square miles. How deep is Lake Tahoe and how much water does it hold?  With a lake surface area of 191 square miles (122,200 acres), a maximum depth of over 1,600 feet, an average depth of 989 feet, and the total capacity of Lake Tahoe is 122,160,280 acre-feet (39 trillion gallons) of water!! Its deepest points are in Crystal Bay at 1,637 feet and off Rubicon Point (1,645 feet).  Surface lake temperatures range from 68° F in the summer, to 41° F during the winter. It never freezes over.  The only outlet is the Truckee River at Tahoe City. 

 

 

 

Lake Success - Tulare County, California

Visited 5/5/2016 - On our travels down to the Palm Springs Rodeo in Banning, California we traveled from Sacramento to this Lake and camped in our truck camper with our two dogs, Summer and Skye.  Lake Success is located 8 miles east of Porterville on Highway 190 in the Central Valley Foothills at 617 feet above sea level.  The barren landscape may frighten some folks away, but it has it's own beauty. The tree-less reservoir is on the edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills, near the Sequoia National Forest. Highway 190 is considered as the Gateway to the Giant Sequoia National Forest.  This 2,450 acre is primarily used for water storage, fishing and boating, but nothing extremely scenic. Although it is situated next to the Sierra mountains, there are minimal vegetation and trees around this man made reservoir. A few oaks scattered about at best. Anything else is planted. This place is at the southern end of the Sierras, next to the Lower Central Valley.  Feeding America's families is just one of the quiet duties of Success Lake in California's fertile Central Valley region. Since the Tule River was dammed in 1961 just outside Porterville, Success Lake has stored water for release to the valley farms that grow grapes, citrus, nuts, olives, apricots, plums and that raise dairy cattle. The lake also acts as a reservoir to store excess spring run-off from the nearby Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, thus avoiding flooding downstream. Since 1989, the Success Dam has also been generating electrical power. All of this occurs in the background as campers, boaters, fishermen and wildlife lovers come to enjoy the expanse of water. Success Lake is the perfect example of putting water to work to serve multiple needs.

View from our campsite on the northeastern side of the Lake.  Very quiet campground with a good view of the Lake.  Not many shade trees, but very peaceful.

Lake Alpine - Alpine County, California

 

Visited on 7/29/2017 – Picture taken on a Saturday trip up to the High Sierras to visit multiple lakes in Amador, Calaveras, Alpine and Tuolumne counties of California.  Jeff and I loaded up our dogs, Summer and Skye in the Jeep for the day and passed by this beautiful lake at the 7,350 feet above sea level and is 179 acres.  Lake Alpine is located on highway 4 about 50 miles east of Angels Camp. There are campgrounds located on the northwest end of the lake and on the southeast side of the lake. The forest service has developed day use picnic areas that are located on the north side of the lake. These areas have barbecues and picnic tables.  You can swim but the water does not warm up until the middle of August.  There is a boat launching ramp (no fee is charged for boat launching) across from the lodge with plenty of parking. The speed limit on the lake is 10mph. The Lake Alpine Lodge is located on the north side of the lake. Services available at the lodge are a restaurant (Good food and a great view of the lake.), bar, and general store. The lodge opens on Memorial day and closes for the season around the end of September or first of October. There is a winter closure gate about 1/2 mile west of the lodge on highway 4. The road closes at the first snow.

There is a nice paved walking trail along the lake that a lot of folks were using while we were there.

McKay's Point Reservoir - Calaveras County, California

Visited on 7/29/2017 - After a long day of visiting several lakes in the High Sierra mountains of California the very last stop was at McKay's Point Reservoir, a 35 acre reservoir located at 3,370 feet elevation in a remote part of backroads near Arnold, California.  Jeff and I were driving as fast as we could on a bumpy gravel road to reach this reservoir before we ran out of daylight.  Well, we made it, but once we got there the only view of the lake that we could get was from the dam.  They had the dam fenced off with a security camera at the dam.  A sign said that it was unsafe because of unexpected water levels.  The worse part of this trip was that I picked up a screw in my back rear tire of my Jeep and we had a flat tire on our way home.  Even though it was a wonderful day exploring over fifteen lakes it wasn't very fun changing a flat tire at 11:15 p.m. at night with two very tired dogs.  We worked as a team and powered through it!

Pinebrook Reservior - Calavares County, California

Visited 7/29/2017 - Jeff and I with our two chocolate Labradors, Summer and Skye passed by Pinebrook Reservoir late in the evening after a full day of capturing the beauty of several California Lakes in the High Sierra Mountains during the day.  This is a little community on Moran Road with a cute fishing hole.  At elevation 4,075 feet above sea level, it is a peaceful little community lake.

Pinebrook Reservoir is the smaller lake located off Moran Road at the bottom of the map.