You might think you know the Sierras inside-out, but many of the mountains’ best sights are waiting for you to discover them
Every year, about 4 million people visit Yosemite National Park alone, more than a million ski Mammoth, almost 3 million visit Lake Tahoe. Even the trails of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, can seem like a thoroughfare on a summer weekend—more than 20,000 attempt to reach the summit each year.
Equally true: It’s impossible to know the California Sierra Nevada. Look at any map of the state, and the mountains occupy a huge swath of the state—400 miles north to south and 70 miles east to west. We see the Sierra Nevada only in bits. We nibble at them. But spend time lingering in Mono County and its charming small towns, Fresno’s stellar lakes, and the mountains’ under-the-radar state and national parks; and you’ll discover a million little Sierras.
“You don’t know the Sierra until you’ve seen it from a saddle.” So says a rider on a horse packing trip, which lets you travel like a forty-niner and cover plenty of ground in a weekend. No approach to the Sierra is unimpressive, but if you want to be hit over the head with the magnitude of the range, the eastern side is your best bet. Here, the California Sierra Nevada rises from Owens Valley in a sheer 3,000-foot wall that shouts, We are what mountains are all about.
The departure point for a horse packing trip, McGee pack station sits at 7,600 feet. Trips can climb up to 3,000 feet (or more) higher, uphill treks that shed light on the appeal of the pack trip, a Sierra Nevada tradition that dates back to 19th-century surveyors, miners, and anyone who needed to haul stuff: It’s better to have a four-footed animal lug you and your gear upward than it is to carry it all on your own two feet.
Spectacular valley famous for waterfalls and lush meadows define this under-the-radar park, which provides a great alternative to Yosemite in the summer months when you do don’t want to contribute to overtourism. John Muir called the park a rival to Yosemite, and you can see why when you find yourself hiking under the towering sequoias, admiring the unspoiled valley, and searching for falls.
Though most stick around the General Sherman, the best sequoia grove in Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks stands on the Congress Trail. Don’t miss the House and Senate groups as the paved trail loops for two miles with giant trees all around.
Part of the drama of Mineral King, a small town gem in the California Sierra Nevada is in getting there. The 25-mile, nearly 7,000-foot climb starts innocently enough in Three Rivers, one of Sequoia National Park’s gateway towns. Before you know it, Mineral King Road is leading you on a succession of twists and blind corners with drop-offs above a seemingly bottomless canyon. A few miles past Silver City Mountain Resort, the only non-camping option along the way, the road rounds the last of its nearly 700 turns then dead-ends at Mineral King Valley. The glacier-carved valley is the jumping-off point for hikes in meadows of wildflowers, along creeks that tumble through stands of aspen, up to alpine lakes. Those 700 turns? Worth it, every one of them.
About 400 granite steps ascend 6,725-foot Moro Rock—like Half Dome without the cables and the long hike. An epic photo-op spot along your trek through the Sierras.
At 14,494 feet, it’s the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. And it doesn’t take any mountain climbing expertise or technical climbing equipment (at least not from mid-July to early October) to tackle the 22-mile round-trip trail to the summit—just lots of stamina. Thousands of people do it each year.
At 7 miles long by 1 mile wide, Huntington is a great Western lake ideal for sailboat racing. And every afternoon, colorful spinnakers fan out among the whitecaps. The Fresno Yacht Club holds its High Sierra Regatta here, but Huntington sailors aren’t snobby. At Lakeshore Resort’s marina, Olympic gold medalists rub elbows with Girl Scouts in Sunfishes. Proper lake attire is flip-flops and a bathing suit, but come evening, when the scent of campfires and roasting s’mores wafts along the shore, it’s jacket weather until bedtime. So it goes, day after day, whether you’re camping or staying at one of the rustic resorts like Huntington Lake Resort or Lakeview Cottages, where cabins lie steps from the water. Welcome to California Sierra Nevada summer.
Geology meets geometry in a massive rock formation of hexagonal columns formed by an ancient lava flow more than 100,000 years ago. You’ll catch a shuttle to get to Devils Postpile from Catch the shuttle Mammoth Adventure Center at Mammoth Mountain Main Lodge. For backcountry hikers, this area provides a perfect gateway to the High Sierras.
To see the terrain immortalized in Ansel Adams’ photographs in person is humbling. Over a dozen waterfalls―at their most bountiful in spring―splash here; Half Dome and El Capitan lure world-class climbers, artists and photographers. In summer you can slip in a raft and bob down the Merced River. It’s definitely not secret, but you can’t skip this classic sight in the California Sierra Nevada. Best to go off-season, though to help balance out the crowds.
Not all of the park is completely discovered and busy. Yosemite’s other great valley, flooded to create Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in the early 1900s. But surrounding mountains remain gorgeous and uncrowded. A 5-mile round-trip hike leads to Wapama Falls.
Stroll through North Grove—the first stand of giant sequoias visited by non–Native Americans. Only three hours from the Bay Area, the park makes a perfect weekend trip. Once there, you can pick from two beautiful campsites—opt for the North Grove site, which sits in an alpine meadow.
The perfect Sierra lodge should at once give you lots of things to do and make it hard for the outside world to annoy you. Karen and Mike Riddle’s version of this ideal retreat sits on Silver Lake—a sapphire blue lake where you can swim, or rent a kayak and paddle out to the lake’s Treasure Island. A short drive away is all the hiking you’ll ever need: Easy treks include the 1-mile trail to Granite Lake. For the more ambitious, a 3.6-mile trail ascends Thunder Mountain. Then there’s Kit Carson Lodge’s parlor, which has knotty pine walls, a stone fireplace, and landscape paintings by local artists. Comfy chairs and small tables invite protracted games of cribbage.
A gorgeous campground, Wrights Lake links you to the Twin Lakes trail, which allows you to hike into the Desolation Wilderness from the west. The scene gets progressively more beautiful as you approach Grouse Lake on the roughly 2-mile trek.
Clear, blue, and still a classic: Tahoe is a sparkling gem in the California Sierra Nevada. Summer at Lake Tahoe is the same as it ever was, too. Go for a sunset sail, take a shot at paddleboarding, or find a slice of beach and take in the to-die-for beauty.
Only a few roads cut through the Sierra Nevada in California from west to east. If speed’s your goal, set cruise control and take I-80 over Donner Summit. But locals argue about which other mountain pass boasts the best scenery. Which is why you shouldn’t drive just one. Instead, take a weekend for a road trip on States 4 and 108.
Day 1: From Arnold, drive State 4 to Bear Valley. Just beyond, Lake Alpine Resort serves up a hearty trout-and-eggs breakfast, and rents kayaks. Heading east, 4 curlicues up and over Ebbetts Pass’s 8,732-foot summit. Two right turns take you first over State 89’s Monitor Pass, then south on U.S. 395 through the rugged Walker River canyon. For dinner and a motel room, Bridgeport is your best bet.
Day 2: From Bridgeport, State 108 runs west to climb steep switchbacks past thick stands of aspens and craggy volcanic outcroppings to the 9,624-foot Sonora Pass. West of the summit, Kennedy Meadows Resort has hamburgers and horseback rides. At Donnell Vista, walk the path that shows off the Yosemite-like gorge of Donnell Reservoir. Cap off the trip with a swim at Pinecrest Lake, and dream of doing it all again in reverse.
Much of Bridgeport’s Main Street is vintage 1880, from the old brick general store to the stately white Mono County Courthouse, built to serve the silver and gold mines that sprang up nearby. And in summer, the town feels equally classic, with July Fourth roping and barrel-racing contests at the rodeo grounds, old-timers debating the latest fishing report over prime rib at the 1877 Bridgeport Inn, and backpackers filing out of the mountains for a post-wilderness soft-serve at the Jolly Kone, easily spotted by its firehouse red paint.
While you’re at it, Bodie is a nearby spooky ghost town-turned-park worth the visit.
A great literary getaway, Jack Kerouac and his “dharma bums” once used Bridgeport as a base to explore the Eastern Sierra of the California Sierra Nevada. For others, though, it serves a slightly different purpose, as a gateway to a natural spa paradise: Hot waters gush to the surface in abnormally high concentration between the towns of Bridgeport and Mammoth Lakes, 60 miles south. But finding the hidden pools that are open to the public (and not scalding hot) requires local knowledge―or locals willing to share that knowledge. One of the best hot springs in the West, Travertine Hot Springs, mineral pools in an alkali-encrusted meadow just east of Bridgeport, isn’t one of those places―it’s accessible.
Shallow, salty―2 1/2 times as salty as the ocean―and shadowed by eerie tufa formations, Mono is Northern California’s second-most famous lake; where Tahoe’s beauties are clear and obvious, Mono’s are more mysterious. It’s a must-stop on a an adventure through the California Sierra Nevada.