Sierra paradise for free (and for sale)
With camping gear, a pair of hiking boots or a kayak, you can claim a piece of paradise at Caples Lake in the high Sierra Nevada.
Or you could rent a cabin and a small boat and take in a getaway that feels like an alpine version of “On Golden Pond.”
The wild and crazy few might consider cashing out of the city life and buying the Caples Lake Resort, with its cabins, store, marina and boats — for the price of $1.25 million.
There are many choices here, but the same reality: a High Sierra paradise has opened for summer.
At 600 acres, Caples Lake is gorgeous, with excellent cabins, camping, fishing and lowspeed boating along Highway 88 near Kirkwood and Carson Pass in the central Sierra Nevada. Many small lakes in the vicinity feature campsites, shore fishing and trailheads to hike into the neighboring Mokelumne Wilderness, such as the hike to Winnemucca Lake, now ice free, tucked at the foot of Round Top.
The centerpiece of the area is Caples Lake, edged by granite and forest at 7,800 feet, an hour’s drive south of Lake Tahoe, 90 minutes east of Jackson. Spring is in full force this week, with the trout biting, wildflowers blooming and trailheads, six campgrounds and several lakes open for the summer season.
The lake is full, the sky is azure blue, and after being locked in snow since November, the area feels like paradise.
You can still find snow on the flank of 10,310-foot Round Top. In the wilderness, Fourth of July Lake will live up to its name and be ice-free by then. On the north side of Carson Pass, the Pacific Crest Trail has snow at Elephant Back on the route over the ridge to Meiss Country and the headwaters of the Truckee River. That, too, will melt off in the coming weeks.
Caples, camps, cabins
Caples Lake has long been the No. 1 summer recreation site in the area. You can use it as a base of operations and launch point, or hunker down in a cabin at night, and boat and fish at the lake by day.
The resort has nine cabins (which sleep three to six people) and six B&B-style lodge rooms. The rate range is $88 to $121 for the lodge, $150 to $300 per night for the cabins. The resort also has its own campground. In the nearby region, Eldorado National Forests operates five campgrounds, including at Caples, Kirkwood and Woods lakes.
Some of the best trout fishing across the Sierra Nevada can be found at Caples Lake, and so it has been again in recent days. Catches of rainbow trout have been excellent, sprinkled with the occasional giant mackinaw or brown trout. The lake records include a 39-inch, 26-pound mackinaw and a 31-inch, 13-pound brown. What we do is troll two lines for rainbow trout, then add another deep line off a downrigger with a big lure for Luther, the name we give a mythical giant trout here.
A small marina and camper store rents aluminum fishing boats and motors, sit-on-top kayaks and canoes. If you own a boat, there are two launches, one at the resort, the other a public ramp operated by the Forest Service at the north shore (past the dam for Caples Creek) off Highway 88.
There’s a 10 mph speed limit and no wakeboarding, water skiing or personal watercraft allowed, so the lake feels like a step back in time, quiet, pretty and idyllic. A few submerged boulders, what we call “boat eating rocks,” keep boaters alert and from driving too fast as well.
The weather this week has been stellar, a preview of summer: highs in the upper 70s, lows around 40, with the sky so blue that you’ll want to take it home with you.
Nearby lakes, wilderness
In close proximity to Caples Lake are a series of Forest Service roads that lead to small lakes and trailheads into the wilderness. The best include Silver, Woods, Kirkwood, Emigrant, Red and Burnside lakes.
Woods — at or near the top of that list — is tucked away at 8,200 feet with a first-come, first-served campground and good trout fishing from a kayak or canoe. The trailhead from Woods Lake leads into the Mokelumne Wilderness for a great, short loop trek, roughly 3 miles or so, to Round Top Lake and Winnemucca Lake. A trip this week showed the trail clear to Winnemucca, with bright, white snowfields above 10,000 feet on the flank of Round Top.
As summer arrives, snowmelt will uncover the Pacific Crest Trail out of 8,652-foot Carson Pass, one of the better PCT trailheads for easy hikes to pretty lakes. To the south, you can hike to Frog Lake (no camping this summer), Winnemucca, Round Top and Fourth of July lakes. Permits for wilderness camping this summer at these lakes will be issued only at the Carson Pass Information Station.
To the north, the PCT leaves Carson Pass, climbs over a ridge and then drops into a valley with the headwaters of the Truckee River, what is called Meiss Country. At a few spots, you can catch a glimpse of Lake Tahoe to the north.
Experience any of this a few times — whether you pay nothing or spend your nest egg — and every time you return, it will feel like you have come home.