Where to hike with a dog in the Sierra Nevadas: the Lakes Basin

If you love hikes where your dog can be off-leash and it loves jumping into water, the Lakes Basin has a beautiful trail called the Bear Lakes Loop in the Plumas National Forest you will both adore.

Just one of the gorgeous lakes.

Located in the northern Sierra Nevadas about 2.5 hours northeast of Sacramento, the trail starts just a few miles south of Graeagle on the Gold Lake Highway.

We started our hike on the trailhead near the Gold Lake Lodge, but there are other trailheads further north that also lead to the loop.

The trail is mostly dirt with a few rocky sections, and about a two weeks ago had plenty of downed trees and full creeks. Most of the creeks were much easier for the dog than the humans to cross, but one had a high and sturdy bridge that she needed to be coaxed into using.

There isn’t a lot of shade, but luckily the altitude made it cool enough for the humans, as dogs can jump in all the lakes they want.

Plenty of snow still in early July.

And the lakes are what makes this hike worth so worth the journey. Some are large and some are quite small, but all are clear and beautiful and come so frequently at the end of the loop that you almost get bored with them. Almost.

But the journey we took to get there, the winding I-70, called the Feather River Highway, was beautiful in its own right.

Words to the wise:

• If you do drive I-70, on your way be sure and stop at Quincy, a cute town that reminded me of a smaller version of Ashland, Ore., featuring a great natural foods store with plenty of tasty snacks for the road.

• Also be sure and check both the road, trail and weather conditions, as the trail had barely opened by July due to the heavy snowfall in the mountains. And even then there were still sections of the trail that were covered in slick slopes of snow that were passable but a bit nerve-wracking – at least to the humans.

Veronica Lake.