This year I planned to take the girls out on a wilderness trip. We’ve done lots of car camping since they were very young. I thought this would be the year to get them to start experience what I love the most…backpacking into the wilderness. Now the kids are still young so I knew we couldn’t go to far and a dad with two young daughters meant I would be carrying all the necessities. Finding a hike that is not to far or steep of a hike was a little tricky and I knew Desolation Wilderness would have a lake we could easily get to.

Eagle Lake near Lake Tahoe met all the requirements. This is a small lake located along the West shore of Lake Tahoe near Emerald Bay. We got to the trailhead around 2:45pm on a Friday and it took a couple passes for a parking spot to open up but we lucked out and got one on Highway 89. The parking lot is very small and fills up quickly because this is a very popular day hiking spot in the summer time.

Once we were parked we put our packs on and got ready for our hike up to the lake. The trail to Eagle Lake is only about 1 mile and around 400 ft of Elevation gain. If you plan to camp overnight a wilderness permit is required. It took us about 1 hour to make it all the way up to Eagle Lake. It was my first time there and was not sure where to camp as everyone on the trail and at the lake was just visiting for the day. We headed to the left side of the lake because it was less crowded and found a nice flat spot near the lake to set up camp. The designated campsites are actually on the right side of the lake but we were only staying for 1 night and although the. girls did great they were not interested in walking around more once we got there. The day crowd eventually left and we had the lake all to our selves for the night.