High Sierra Topix

My wife and I are planning a 3 night trip to the Beyers Lake area north of I80 next week. I just talked with the Tahoe National Forest office in Nevada City and they said to be prepared for snow. Beyers Lake is at 6850' and Baltimore is at 7184'. Has anyone been up in that area recently? Given other recent HST trip reports, I can't (don't want to) belive that the TNF ranger's report is accurate. Any thoughts?

Our itinerary is: Beyers Lakes night 1; Baltimore or Wagon Wheel Lakes night 2; and, Loney Lake night 3. We chose this area because we thought it might not have hight foot traffic. I hope that is has good fishing.

Thanks, Bill Markwood

The report of snow is not far fetched at all. What is key is whether your preferred road access is blocked or not. My wife and I did these lakes several times over the years, the last time in 2001. Our preferred way in was via the Baltimore lake jeep trail, but one has to have a capable vehicle and experience in 4WD travel. The actual 4WD-low range section is pretty short but there is one downward step on the granite that will make you wonder if you can get back up it. This always proved to be OK for us (I drive a stock 92 Pathfinder with highway tires). I suppose if you couldn't get back up you could always do some road engineering to make sure it would go OK.

As for the lakes, Beyers is particularly nice. Baltimore is OK. The latter may have gone fishless as per management changes, but I'm not certain. It could also have some very rare humongous brookies. Beyers is also a bit iffy, but I'd suspect it's still a good cutthroat lake even if it's no longer air dropped, given that I'm pretty sure the upper lake has spawning capability.

We were in the Yolla Bolly Middle Eel Wilderness over the 4th and there was patchey snow at 6-6500' on the north sides in the trees and solid just a bit higher on the north sides.

Southern exposures oughta be good, but tree covered areas may be covered. You can always go a bit further and go in at Carr/Lindsey Lake area.

We went to Beyer but not Baltimore last week. See posting today under Tahoe NF: Eagle Lake

Thanks for all your input. GB, we have decided to take your recommendation on another post and go to the Jamison Lakes area for 3 nights. It's not the High Sierra, but it is supposedly free of snow. I'll post a report when we get back.

Thanks again, Bill Markwood