El Dorado National Forest: Highland Trail to Forni Lake

Grass-of-Parnassus

One of the least used entrances to the Desolation Wilderness is a trail that leads from the Van Vleck parking area to Forni Lake. This trailhead lies more than 25 miles from a major highway, and it does not offer the quick access to lakes and dramatic granite topography that other trailheads offer, but it is the quickest, if not the safest, route to dramatic Highland Lake.

After picking up my friend Erik, we headed west on US 50 to the turnoff for Ice House Road, just before 50 turns into a twisting two-lane highway that runs alongside the South Fork American River and approaches the pass to cross over to the Lake Tahoe region. We drove north that road, past the turn off for Ice House Reservoir and several turn offs for enormous Union Valley Reservoir, until we reached the delightfully named Cheese Camp Road (no, I have no explanation), which was signed for the Van Vleck Bunkhouse and the Desolation Wilderness.


Cheese Camp Road

From here my directions said to drive to a dirt road on the right 500 feet before a locked gate. How would I know when I reached that point? There was a sign that said, "LOCKED GATE, 500 FEET AHEAD." It's a short but bumpy ride on the dirt road to the parking area, where there were day use permits for the Desolation Wilderness.

From there we walked back up the dirt road, then down the paved road to the locked gate and beyond it onto dirt road. There are several old roads out here, some for the Van Vleck Ranch, only one building of which has been preserved, I believe, and old logging roads.

We passed a junction with a fork to the right for the Red Peak Trail, then immediately after a fork to the left for Loon Lake. We continued up the road past a useless cattle guard (there being no fence on either side of it) and some odd piece of yellow equipment on the left with two large wheels, until we reached a weather station and a junction post.

What lies ahead on that road, I don't know. We veered off the to right at the junction and the weather station. Here the trail followed an old PG&E road that has not been maintained. It was single track trail, but with an unusually large gap between the trees, and occasional evidence that this was formerly a wider road. Some small trees have sprouted up, though, and some time in the future, the evidence that there was a road here should be thoroughly obscured.

We passed along quite quickly on this fairly level portion of trail. We were not overwhelmed with dramatic views, but I was delighted to see so many butterflies and wildflowers this late in a dry season. The terrain varied from dense forest to meadow, sometimes mixed with glacial erratics (big granite boulders strewn throughout the forest and meadows).

The first meadow we crossed had a brook bubbling through it, again surprising when everything has been so dry. It later had a boggy area to cross, which must be a major task when there is more water around. Posts with the word "Trail" aided the passage across all the meadows. Other meadows were filled with dead or dieing mule ears and California false hellebore. And yet in some of the forested areas, green ferns were thriving.

Just past one of those meadows of yellowing mule ears, we met the junction sign indicating Shadow Lake on the left fork, and Highland Trail, on the right. We took Highland. It had frequent posts too, only these were much narrower than the earlier "Trail" posts, and said "Highland Tr."

Not longer after we reached the Desolation Wilderness boundary sign, which was interesting only because it was not the same shape as all the others I have seen. From there, the easy hiking was over. The trail immediately started up.


Desolation Wilderness Boundary

But in the brief section of the trail before it got ridiculously steep, I heard, and then spotted, a deer off to the left. Most of the Desolation Wilderness is, not surprisingly, desolate. Dramatic granite landscapes on which conifers struggle to find a foothold dominate the majority of it. This approach took us through much more forgiving, heavily forested areas, which can support deer and their predators, as evidenced by that deer, the only one I have seen in the Desolation Wilderness.

But that was only a few yards in. Then we started up a steep slope where trees were far more scattered. Not only was it steep, the footing was insecure--dirt and pebbles. I wasn't looking forward to descending this part. After the grunt up this portion, we leveled off to a lush area where the trail was mostly overgrown. Late in the year, it had been trampled down for us, but I imagine it is difficult to find the way across earlier.

Not that the path was easy to find for us. The trampled vegetation led us to the east past the talus on the slope to the north, and then up via a sketchy route. No cairns to mark the way this time, just guess work and then corrections. Once we got up close to the high point of the route to Forni Lake, there were indicators. Some obvious trail off to a viewpoint was marked as off trail by a line of rocks and tree branches, and cairns led us on to the short descent to Forni Lake.

This lake is described in Tahoe Sierra as "Hemmed in with vegetation" and "not particularly photogenic." It was not hemmed in with vegetation when we visited, given that the water level was so low. I walked out 25 feet into what was the lake earlier in the year, and now was just rocks coated with dirt, to take some pictures. The sound of fish splashing into the water was constant. At first, I just heard the splashes, and saw the concentric circles in the water, but soon I spotted the fish flashing out of the water to eat insects. Erik asked me why they were jumping out of the water and I told him that the little fishies were just so happy to be in a beautiful mountain lake that they were jumping for joy.


Forni Lake

I thought we were going cross country from here to head towards Highland Lake, and my book told me to head off from the southeast part of the lake. My topographic map, on the other hand, made it look like we should head out from the northeast corner of the lake. I split the difference and headed directly east (the northeast corners would have been correct).

We picked our way cross country, going up wherever it seemed easiest to go up. Then we hit a ridge. There was a depression directly in front of us, and I did not want to go down to head back up again, but it looked like we should have gone up into that lower area. Consulting together and looking at the map, it looked like we should be climbing the ridge on the opposite side of that depression. I chose to skirt around it to the south, lengthening the horizontal distance, but avoiding a lot of additional climbing.

We worked our way over and then TA-DA! There was a trail. Had I read the description of this hike thoroughly, this wouldn't have been so surprising. It is not marked on my Desolation Wilderness trail map, but the trail up to the ridge overlooking Highland Lake is not a use trail, but a trail that was created at one time and even marked with blazes on trees, but which is now unmaintained and hard to follow in places.

We followed the trail up as best we could, searching for cairns often. And then came the ridge. This trail had been one without drama, and then, before me, was all the drama I could ask for. We were on the ridge of a cirque that dropped about 800 feet below with all granite terrain, a beautiful lake (Highland Lake) at the bottom, and Lake Tahoe in the background.


Highland Lake

My original intention had been to go down to that gorgeous lake and swim in it, but it had taken us a long time to get where we were after a late start on the trail, and it was a long way down, and back up. My book warned of the dangers on the way down,which meant to pick our way down safely would likely be slow going. And yet it was beautiful and tempting. I really wanted to swim in a mountain lake that day, and Forni Lake was so shallow that it barely had room for its fish. I let the urge go and left it for another day.

The descent to Forni Lake, mostly via the abandoned trail, was much easier than the ascent, and not just because we were going downhill. It was a better route, even though I couldn't always find it. At one point I was sure I was thoroughly off trail, and then I was just as surely back on trail.

The sometimes confusing descent to the lush area followed, not much more clear than the abandoned trail. And after that, the steep descent on the loose rocks and dirt. As I expected, I slipped a few times, but I didn't fall. My strategy on such loose footing is to keep my feet at a 45 degree angle to the descent, 90 degrees when it gets intolerably steep.



Back down to the easy, but not short, stretch, I stopped to take some macro shots of flowers, and water a tree. After an otherwise lovely hike, the portion of the trail that followed dirt road seemed unduly long and ugly, but at least we were above the valley heat, to which we returned all too soon.

Hike Summary

Date: 24 August 2007
Trailhead: Van Vleck
Approximate distance: 10.8 miles