A hike to Dog Lake

Our next trip took us along Tioga Pass Road and into Yosemite to hike to Dog Lake.   According to DB it was a short ‘easy’ hike, maybe a couple or three miles.

This time we arrived early and actually found a parking space, so far so good.   The start of the hike took us across open granite with views of Lembert Dome,

through a lovely meadow into the forest.

Once in the forest we soon hit the steep section, and climbed rapidly up 750 ft, it felt like more, in a series of steep switchbacks before sort of levelling out higher up.  

Dog lake is very pretty, but I have to say, not spectacular,   The clear, still, water reflected the blue sky, clouds, mountains, forest beautifully.

A most convenient log was a great spot to eat lunch and wonder how come a lake at an elevation of 9,240 ft in Yosemite got to be called Dog Lake.

Apparently it’s as simple as the fact that in 1898, Robert Marshall, a member of a US Geological Survey party, found an abandoned sheep dog with a litter of puppies by the lake.

You can walk around the lake, we thought about it, but storm clouds seemed to be building in the distance so even though we’d got rain gear with us, we decided against it.   Yes, I’ll quite happily admit, we are definitely fair weather hikers! 

We never actually saw a storm, but the clouds got very black as we drove back.

It was a fun hike but because of the starting elevation and subsequent steep switchbacks taking you rapidly up 750ft I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘easy’.

That turns out to be correct as the park service class it as ‘moderately strenuous’, so much for DB’s assurances that it was ‘easy’!

Still we enjoyed our hike, but I don’t think it’s one we’d bother to do again.

Have fun, we are!