Susie Lake
11/14/2021: Long, gradual uphill. We did this our first day. Should have saved for later to acclimate a bit more to the elevation. Beautiful waterfalls along the hike, especially at about ¾ miles in. Moderately Trafficked (we saw about 10 people). “Man, I sure love the High Sierra.” Started the hike about 9:40 and returned to TH at 3:00. I stopped to take a lot of pictures. Also tried to hike to Grass Lake, but the stream was too swollen to cross. Next time…
Marg's Notes: Adventure Begins for Real. Did not rush out but were on the road before 9. Headed south, then back north. The plan was to hike a Fallen Leaf Lake hike for an easy day. But…road to the trail was closed. Drove on to Lily Lake, the end of the road. So, thought we would hike to Grass Lake. It was chilly when we started at 9:45, so we bundled up. Walked along a rough road to start with. Before we had gone a mile, we saw a beautiful waterfall! Rod took lots of pics. There were a few cabins scattered around. Next, we came to Glen Alpine Springs. It was a resort in the late 1800’s. Wonder if the West family ever went there? About 100 yds from the turnoff to Grass Lake, we encountered a stream that was moving too fast to cross. We backtracked & headed UP to Susie Lake. We climbed a lot and the altitude really slowed me down…but we kept going. After climbing up Tallac Mt. we finally got to Susie Lake. We were hungry & tired. We were now at almost 8,000 ft. UGH. We both felt better after eating. The lake was beautiful! We hiked out in 2 hours. 5 hours total. 9.5 miles! I was exhausted. Came home & showered & collapsed! I had a beer!
Dinner: Lasagna, salad, bread.
Rod’s Ramblings from the Trail: Beautiful ponderosa pines. The landscape along with granite stones and ponderosa pine cones. It is late in the year and a lot of rain has fallen so there are streams going down the middle of the trail but it's really easy to get around. We got to the trailhead right before the sun popped up over the mountains. If you're a photographer, you might want to come a bit earlier. We started at 9:40 because it took us a while to find the trailhead.
There is the Glen springs resort about 1.4 mi. in on the hike, which is pretty cool, I guess. I think it's now more of a historical monument but perhaps it's still usable.
A tip. At least it is for me. When you hear rushing water and it sounds like it's falling over waterfalls or something, and there's a clear path to it. Take it and see what’s there. It might just surprise you.
At about 2¼ miles in, you come to the Desolation Wilderness permit area. On this trip we did not need a permit for day hiking.
There is a lot of gradual uphill on this trail. You will go uphill gradually then level off for a while, get your breath, and then go back uphill again. The good thing is that on your way back you're going downhill and that should be good…most of the time, anyway.
Our final destination is now Susie Lake because we could not get across the creek to reach Grass Lake. It's just too high and running too fast.
Yes, we are slower than we used to be. But every step is still as wonderful as it ever was. Perhaps, we are enjoying them just a little bit more.
What with our trying to go to Grass Lake and having to turn around in a few other side excursions The hike to Susie Lake is going to be about 10 miles out and back. That is more than we had planned on for today because we wanted to get used to the elevation, but we are going to survive – happy hour is really starting to look good 😊.
We had lunch at Susie Lake which is almost 5 miles in. Final elevation was about 7,900 feet at Susie Lake.