David Sox

David Sox

Backpack to the "Waterfall Camp" in Desolation Wilderness

09/28/20

This is a blast from the distant past, being about 1958 to 1961, which was when I access this so-called Waterfall Camp on the northwestern end of Lake Aloha, Desolation Valley. The routes discussed here lead one north along the western shore of Lake Aloha, but the fastest route is either by rubber boat--are those still allowed?--or by scrambling across the rock fall just north of the small peninsula where the camp is located. I camped at what used to be called John Allen's camp, which had been developed in the 1930s by the neighbor below our cabin on Stanford Hill, Fallen Leaf Lake. John Allen's camp was located almost due south of Mosquito Pass at the north end of Desolation Valley, accessible only be a little visible trail off the Mosquito Pass trail. I believe the USFS demolished sometime after the 1960s-70s. One has to scramble over large rocks to access the peninsula. I did it (with a friend--I can't recall) without a backpack because it was just a day trip from my campsite. There was a copse of tall trees on the peninsula under which was a soft bed of decayed bark and dirt with several logs providing protection from the wind and whatever big critters I thought might be present. In fact, there were no bears in the Lake Tahoe region from the late 1940s thru the 1960s.

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