Echo Lake to Lake Aloha

 

Today I am meeting up with some fellow hikers from my regular Hiking Group, but it is not part of the official group. We have five of us total and will be hiking from Echo Lake to Lake. Aloha.

The trail rises up to the side of echo lake. There is an Outlook overlooking lake Tahoe in the distance.

Echo Lake is extremely calm today. We are in the transition season when most cabins have been closed up and very few recreational boats are on the lake. This morning there are none the surrounding mountains reflect off the surface of the water clearly visible. 

As we get towards the top of both lower and upper echo lakes, we can look down over both of them. 

This section of trail is super rocky. The views of the lakes are beautiful, but I’m not a huge fan of this type of a trail is hard on the feet, ankles, and knees.

Tamarack Lake sits about a 10th of a mile off the side of the trail. I have never been there, but today we decided to take a short detour towards it. 

Tamarack Lake is beautiful also crystal clear with incredible reflections of the mountains around it appearing on the surface. The reflection cover covers almost half of the lake. 

After getting back on the trail, which is a portion of the PCT, my happy place, I ran into a southbound through hiker with the Trail name of “Mud Foot”. We had a great chat about the Trail and both of our experiences.

Lake Louise sits just off to the side of the trail and I passed it as I quickly tried to catch back up to the group after spending time talking with Mud Foot.

We reach Lake Aloha. The level is lower than I have ever seen it before. That did not stop us from taking a swim; however, the water was breathtakingly cold!  It did feel very refreshing.

After lunch, we headed back towards Echo Lake going towards Lake Tamarack from above, offered a good view of it.

On our last mile, we again ran in to mud foot who had stopped for a swim echo lake. He walked out with us the rest of the way with more good conversation. We soon reach the parking lot ending our hike. We covered 13.8 miles today with great weather, good friends, and incredible views of creation.