The Saddlebag Lake loop trail sits just outside Yosemite at the top of Tioga Pass, an easy drive from our campsite at Tuolumne Meadows. 4 miles with minimal elevation gain, along with alpine lakes? Sign me up.
Tioga Lake is the warm-up act, right along Highway 120 on our drive just before you crest the pass. At just under 9,700 feet, with Mount Dana and the surrounding peaks stacked up behind it, it’s the kind of lake that makes you pull over even when you didn’t plan to.
We didn’t linger too long – Saddlebag was the real destination – but it’s definitely worth the stop and the photo op.
Sitting Still
Shelby and Tom take a moment to sit and enjoy the Sierra Nevada high country.
Tioga Lake Reflection
Mammoth Peak, Kuna Peak, and Kuna Crest are all reflected in Tioga Lake, with Mount Dana off to the left
In The Wild
Tom looks like he’s straight off a National Geographic assignment.
Saddlebag Lake itself is the highest lake in the Sierra Nevada you can reach by car, sitting at roughly 10,087 feet just outside the Yosemite boundary in the Inyo National Forest. It’s not a natural alpine lake – the dam went in back in the 1920s for irrigation – but nobody standing at the shoreline is thinking about hydrology.
The loop trail circles the lake and pushes on into the 20 Lakes Basin – be warned – the left side of the loop is noticeably rockier and crappier trail than the right side, we recommend doing it as an out-and-back using the right side of the loop only.
Saddlebag Lake
Looking out across Saddlebag Lake as we start our morning hike
Saddlebag Lake and North Peak
The water of Saddlebag Lake is almost Tahoe blue in this shot, with the moon high above North Peak.
Headed Back
The trail on this side of Saddlebag Lake is much nicer than the rocky crap on the far side.
Greenstone Lake is the payoff for this hike.
North Peak rising straight up over the water is one of those views that shows up on every Sierra hiking list for good reason, and we made sure to get the classic shot along with everyone else who’s ever hiked this loop.
Alpine lake, jagged granite spire, done.
It’s a canned formula, but it’s a formula that works.
Greenstone Lake Classic Shot
This is THE shot to get of North Peak over Greenstone Lake
North Peak Selfie
Also getting THE shot of North Peak over Greenstone Lake
Greenstone Lake 360
A 360 photo from some rocks in the middle of Greenstone Lake along the Saddlebag Lake loop trail. Click and scroll around.
From the trailhead we dropped back down toward Highway 395 and Mono Lake, my third visit over the last decade and a half – 2012, 2024, and now this trip – and it’s still amazing every time.
We needed to fuel up the rental car at the intersection of Tioga Road and 108 anyway, might as well drive the extra ten miles and show the kids that all the cool stuff isn’t up in the mountains.
The tufa towers are the big draw here: calcium-carbonate spires formed underwater where freshwater springs meet Mono’s intensely alkaline, saline water, then left standing exposed once the lake level dropped. That drop wasn’t natural either – Los Angeles started diverting the lake’s feeder streams in 1941, and the resulting environmental fight is a big part of why Mono Lake has any water left at all.
The south tufa area lets you wander right among the towers on the shoreline, and from a distance the lake just looks like any other high-elevation reservoir. Get close and it’s an entirely different, stranger place.
Rubber Rabbitbrush
The rubber rabbitbrush bush is everywhere around Mono Lake and grows to be pretty large.
In Your Face
Is she taking a photo of Tom, or tufa towers?
Tall Tufa
This is a great perspective of how tall the Mono Lake tufa towers really are
Not Just Another Lake
You’d never know that this lake was extremely saline, it looks like any other high elevation reservoir.
Scattered Stacks
The tufa towers are scattered everywhere on the south side of the lake.
Mono Lake 360
A 360 photo at Mono Lake. Click and scroll around.
Three trips in, Mono Lake hasn’t gotten old. Neither has this whole corner of the Eastern Sierra. Skip the overpopulated and over-visited Western Sierra and spend time time in the real beauty here.
