Island Lake & Emerald Pools

Today, Cade and I went to Island Lake in Tahoe National Forest. This one was actually Cade’s idea. He wanted to go after seeing it in a cliff jumping video featuring several northern California swimming holes. I personally prefer my swimming holes in creeks and rivers as opposed to lakes and oceans, but I didn’t want to hijack the trip with only my picks, and Island Lake looked pretty decent. It has clear water, cliffs to jump from, and an island in the middle. It looked like it would be cold based on the elevation and alpine landscape, but the people in the cliff jumping video said it was warm when they went. In researching how to get there last night, I discovered that Emerald Pools on the South Yuba River (the swimming hole we meant to go to yesterday) was on the way, so we planned to stop by Emerald Pools on our way back from Island Lake. The road to get to Island Lake was a winding mountain road with hairpin turns for about eight miles. The last four miles were a rough gravel road that we had to take slowly. When looking up directions for the trailhead, it looked like the two shortest approaches for Island Lake would be to start at Carr Lake or Grouse Ridge. The trail from Grouse Ridge had more of an elevation loss (i.e., gain on the way back) and appeared to be longer on the map, so we opted to hike in from Carr Lake.

( Click here for the full trip report with pictures and videos )

In summary, Island Lake was okay, but it was a little chilly, and the jumping options were pretty limited because the water was not deep directly below the cliffs. I’m not one for high jumping (15-20 feet is probably my limit), but when I do jump, I don’t like to have to leap out and clear obstacles. I want to know that I will not hit anything even if I drop straight down. Island Lake did not have anything like that, so I was dissatisfied with the jumping options there. As I said, I’m generally not a fan of lakes as swimming holes, and Island Lake didn’t really do anything to change my mind in that regard.

I hesitate to make any judgments about Emerald Pools since my exploration of that area today was pretty half-assed, but I will say they looked impressive, and I probably would have enjoyed it more if we had gotten there earlier in the day. If the water had been about 10-15 degrees warmer, I would say it would be close to a perfect swimming hole. I probably won’t make an effort to get back to Emerald Pools on this trip, but I would probably return on a hot sunny day if I were back in the area in the future.
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Update: We returned to Emerald Pools in 2021 and paid it a proper visit. Click here for the trip report.