Grouse Lake Hike

Trip Date: 08/11/2017

Distance: 8.5 Miles

Vertical Gain: 500'

Group Size: 6

Hike Rating: Easy Moderate Hard Strenuous

GPX for this trip

Start Coordinates:

N 38 38.446, W 119 57.300

End Coordinates:

Same as Start Coordinates

Car Shuttle Req'd:

Parking Directions:

Take Highway 88 to Blue Lakes road and turn south. Follow the road for a little more than 15 miles to the parking area on the left between the two lakes. There is a sign here on the right for the middle campground area.

Hazards of Note:

Water crossing in early summer. Mosquitos, ticks, and trail navigation the last mile to Grouse Lake.

Crowd Factor:

Moderate to Minimal past Granite Lake.

General Notes:
From the parking area, head west across the metal bridge spanning the outflow from Upper Blue Lake to find the trailhead sign just on the other side. If the water crossing over the creek out of the lake is too high to easily cross, from the trailhead sign head parallel along the actual dam and cross a bridge right at the base of the dam at a small structure. Pick up the trail on the other side and head along the creek until this use trail meets up with the regular path. The first mile will take you through a forested section until you reach the signed boundary for the Mokelumne Wilderness. Soon after this point you will pass on the south side of a small, unnamed pond, and then begin a gradual climb into more and more open area up to the spot about 2 miles along the trail where you reach Granite Lake. This is a popular spot for people to camp or day hikers to turn around at, but you will follow along the south and then west shores until you reach a junction off to the left which typically has a stack of rocks (cairn) marking the junction.
From this point on the trail will become much less frequented, and you will journey through a couple of meadows and wind around until you begin a pretty constant uphill rise after 3 miles which will mostly continue on up to the high point just past Deadwood Peak off to your right. From this point, about a mile away from Grouse Lake you will begin a steep descent of about 700' in elevation over the last mile to the lake.

A very creative rock early on the trail which has been decorated up to resemble a monsterous character of some type.

This tree is pretty tough and has been able to survive some fairly traumatic events over its lifetime.

With all of the rains this last year this unnamed pond on the way to Granite Lake looks as nice now as it ever has.

Greg and Mark on the trail as the elevation gain begins in earnest.

A nice look at the east end of Granite Lake from the south part of the trail.

A little ways past Granite Lake is an overlook of Meadow Lake and Jackass Canyon off to the left, which also has cell service coming from far off Mt. Reba.

The trees seemed to get larger and larger as we went on, and this next set of three in all took us a lot longer than the first one.

Using a wedge to help keep the saw from binding up on us as the depth of the cut got further into the tree.

It wasn't easy, but we finally got this good sized log cleared with a couple of cuts to allow the trail to pass on through. We spent so much time here that it made for a good lunch spot.

Ranger Chip supervising Dave's turn on one of the smaller trees to be cleared along the way.

On the way up the trail toward Moraine Lake were some nice views of the west side of the Tanglefoot Canyon and the way we had trekked down into the canyon.

Everyone had their stomachs drop when, almost to Moraine Lake we came across this bugger which was huge and ended up taking the rest of our time to clear.

The position of the tree made it two dangerous for the double-buck saw, at least for the person on the down-slope side, so we all took multiple turns with this one getting through one cut, and hoping we could cut through the base still slightly attached.

Amazingly enough, it not only took just one major cut, but it rolled down completely off the trail just as we had hoped it would with a little help from roller logs underneath it.

On the way back the temptation was there to check out Shriner Lake, but all the effort expended on the day had us just wanting to get back to the vehicles. Maybe next trip.

GPS Track of the full hike.