2026-06-24
Categories: Travel Camping
Last week I got to go camping at Carr Lake in the Tahoe National Forest with friends! We stayed for two nights at a very nice campsite right by the lake. The campsite was first come first serve and cost a night. The site had a nice picnic table, a bear box for storing food, a fire pit, easy access to the lake for filtering water, trees for setting up a hammock, and also a bunch of nearby portapottys. All in all it was more than worth the bucks!
Since the site was first come first serve we made a plan B in case the 11 sites were all full. About only one mile past the campsite there is another lake with tons of dispersed camping, so we packed as if we were going to go backpacking. This meant we had to make sure all our food packed into a bear cannister, and we also left really early to try to make sure we got a site.
The drive was just three hours from Oakland and the last couple miles were over dirt road. While our Toyota Corolla did fine on the dirt road, I definitely wouldn't try it with our car or any low clearance car if there was any bad weather. Lucky for us the whole weekend was pretty sunny.
After spending the first night at our campsite, we then spent the next day hiking to one of the nearby lakes and bringing all the supplies for a picnic with us. The lake was recommended to me by a hiker passing by who said he lived near by and that the lake felt like a mini version of Sierras. (I think where we were was in the Sierras?)
It was about three mile casual hike to the lake. When we got there we set up a hammock, and broke out the snacks and our books. After laying in the sun a bit I cannon balled into the lake, it was awesome. For snacks we had tortillas, peanut butter, apple, parmesan, and crackers.
Later that night we had the campfire going, and were starting on making smores. I was starting to filter a bag of lake water into my nalgene when my friend said that there was an invisible fish in the bag! "What the $%^& do you mean there's invisible fish in the bag?!" Sure enough after some convincing and strained staring I too had spotted the small translucent fish that I must have accidentally scooped up from the lake. Despite being a pescetarian, I released the fish back into the lake as filtered fish water didn't sound too appealing. The Sawyer water filter is pretty good at filtering water but I don't know how it would handle a fish.