Angora Lakes (El Dorado County, California)

My buddy Nick and his family recently moved back to Reno after a couple of years in Austin, Texas. He's told me several times that during his time in Texas he wasn't able to get much hiking in and so I decided to take the opportunity to get him out this morning. We wanted to start with something relatively easy and he suggested hiking to and around the Angora Lakes near South Lake Tahoe. Never having visited these small, but popular alpine lakes, I was excited to see something new.

When we hit the trail a bit after 9:00 AM, the trail head parking lot was already nearly full. This appears to be a really, really popular area. The trail leaves the lot and starts quickly uphill. We soon see the first of the three lakes to our left, followed quickly by the larger Lower Angora Lake. Finally after 3/4 of a mile, we reach the jewel of the set, Upper Angora Lake. 

The lake has a number of cabins constructed around it and the beach below us and to our right is crowded with people enjoying the final days of summer. Nick and I, along with his four-legged friend Sam, make our way around the left side of the lake through the cabins area. The trail quickly disappears in and among a hillside covered with large granite boulders. Normally, I would look forward to finding a path through the scramble, but the extra consideration of Sam makes it a bit more challenging. He's a very active and fit pooch, but at 35ish pounds and on four legs, he's not able to navigate over boulders of this size very easily. 

We eventually reach a point where we are unable to see a path for Sam (our ourselves) to continue safely and decide to take a rest before heading back the way we came. We choose a slightly different path for our return. On the way we we notice a number of old campsites, one of which is littered with a number of tin beer cans (which ceased production in the late 70's or early 80's). This has obviously been a popular get away for a long time. After reaching the car, I check the distance on my app and find that we covered a bit over two miles. Not a bad start to getting my friend back into the trail life.