Читать книгу Trinity Alps & Vicinity: Including Whiskeytown, Russian Wilderness, and Castle Crags Areas. A Hiking and Backpacking Guide онлайн

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Emerald Lake is an outstandingly beautiful 21-acre lake in a bowl gouged out of solid granite by the same glaciers that were born in the giant cirque above and were responsible for carving out the 2,000-foot-deep canyon. The lake is normally warm enough by early August for comfortable swimming, with shelving rocks and a sandy slope at the northeast shore providing a convenient spot for sunbathing and for admiring the stunning scenery. Unfortunately, some ignorant people have camped here over the years; a worse spot to set up camp is hard to imagine—it’s way too close to the water. Fishing is not spectacular here, but some small brook trout usually rise for flies toward evening. The best place to drop a line seems to be near the inlet on the southwest shore. Remember, campfires are not allowed at any of the Stuart Fork lakes.

Emerald Lake Dam

A dam of cut, fitted granite blocks was built in the 1890s to fill the notch worn by the outlet stream at the south end of the natural granite dike along the east shore. The dam raised the level of the lake more than 20 feet to store water for use at the La Grange Mine on Oregon Mountain, 29 miles to the southwest. The dam has been breached now and the lake has returned to its previous level, but the rest of the dam remains, a testament to the prodigal efforts men exert to extract gold from the ground.