In Blue: Tangle Blue Lake

Shasta-Trinity National Forest

DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3

Red line for day 1. Click for interactive map

For this weekend, Daniil's plan was to head out to Tangle Blue Lake to camp two nights and then walk off to wherever, there's lots of trails around, for the middle day. Since Tangle Blue Lake got cut out of my lake visiting plans on the 5th day of a mighty loop from far west, this was my opportunity to see it after all. But I wasn't so sure about there being so many trail options. Also coming along were his wife, their tiny dog, and a new backpacker. We got started a smidge later than planned getting together gear for the new backpacker, but that's okay because people must be exposed to backpacking! We had almost 4 miles to get to the lake from the trailhead, and expected it to be dark before we got there.

Already in shadow at the trailhead.

The trailhead is a bulge in the road just before a section of private land, part of the checkerboard lands given to the railroad on the far eastern side of this bit of the Trinity Alps. The public parks on the public land and the road continues past a gate and over a prefab vehicle bridge to some heavily eroded roads beyond. Junctions are not signed or mapped, so we just had to try and see if we were still on trail while traveling through this private property.

It's a very green canyon starting off with just a peek of the creek.

The bridge to cross Tangle Blue Creek.

At least one of the spurs showed some travel and sometimes cairns were set in the middle between options thus favoring neither, but we made the correct turns each time as we climbed.

Trail following the disused and eroded road.

There's a campsite marked on the map and it is a well established one, but it is definitely on private property. We weren't tempted. We seemed determined to get to the lake and not have to move the next day anyway.

A meadow full of wildflowers opens up to the side of the trail, not that they can be seen in this light.

A forest of sneezeweed with many bumblebees sleeping.

And there's a closer view of a sleeping bumblebee.

We came to a junction with a sign pointing upward for "TB" and started up. I was a little worried about this because, while OpenStreetMap shows two ways to get to the lake, I had mapped one of them after noticing there was some Strava heat contouring around from the trail to the Grand National Mine to the lake. This is not actually good practice and the official Forest Service information only marks the lower trail. A line on the Strava heatmap could be any sort of off trail travel. Now I would find out if I had done good or evil.

Trail following old road rises toward the mine on the left and drops to cross Tangle Blue Creek on the right. There's a sign way back there on the center tree.

Someone had clearly put some work into establishing an actual trail along the old road that serviced Grand National Mine. Touches of color started to show up on the clouds behind the trees.

It's about to get even darker.

Where the junction was marked, a thin trail curved off the side of the old road to the mine, wandered into the forest, and made a crossing of the stream beside the road at an improved crossing. There was true trail here. I had done good! (Phew!) The first part of the trail had some elaborate rock wall builds holding it up or the slope up, but it got a little more constrained as if the builders realized they didn't have infinite time as it went along. It was good, obviously built trail the whole way following very close to the contour line. And it looked out over the valley with viewpoints in several places.

It's already a very dark valley to look out over.

A very grainy image of that beautifully built trail.

The trail starts to fade as the lake comes into view.

So we arrived at the lake without mishap except then we had to find a camp in the dark. We could see lights around on the west side of the lake where someone was already camping. There's well established camps right where the old and new trail meet. In fact, there's the remains of at least three ice can stoves that were rocked in there. That's where we placed ourselves.

A grainy photo of the lake under the moon as if there won't be a chance for a better picture later.

And I still had to cook up some supper as well as pitch a tent. (The weather was not expected to quite be perfect.) I got a very late finish to the day. Fortunately, those neighbors a quarter way around the lake were the closest.

Continue on to the next day ⇒




*photo album*

©2025 Valerie Norton
Written 2 Nov 2025