Best Trails in Tahoe National Forest

Rad trail, if you are new to rock crawling or don’t have a well built crawler I don’t recommend it. Most of the winch hills have bypasses but the water crossings don’t. I have been thru committee crossing where it was over 6ft deep in some spots and the only reason I made it across is because my jeep floats. I would also recommend 37” tires or bigger, Dana 44s or better with lockers and lots of armor.

Be advised - this trail is for LEASHED dogs only! And please be considerate of others who might have dog fears or leashed dogs with some aggression issues. I was appalled when I walked the trail yesterday!

Trail is surprisingly cool if you are into history of the area. If so, definitely worth the walk. Would be good if they cut back some of the weed overgrowth.

The trail is paved. The amazing 240+ degree views of the lake are worth this quick hike.

Fun little hike before the snows return. If actually trying to bag the true summit keep in mind it’s the easternmost crag. Def a bit of exposed class 3 climbing to get up top but we still managed to get up in a little under two hours.

Super easy hike. We did this after we got off the plane to stretch our legs! Amazing views!!

Wonderful hike. Great scenery all the way to the top. When you get to the top though, there’s a path that was made with rocks, don’t follow it, keep going across the top of the mountain and that will take you to Lake Angela

beautiful views and amazing trail.

The directions take you down a dirt road that is relatively rocky so make sure you have a car with decent clearance. We also never found the actual trail head but it was fun to explore and walk along the train tracks!

It was a windy September Saturday when we hiked to Ellis Peak. Great trail with truly beautiful views all around. After leaving the peak make sure you look out for the smaller trail leading back to Barker Pass - crossing the Ellis Lake trail. Met a couple of friendly and helpful trail bikers, but it was mostly hikers on the route.

Great mellow trail!

Challenging but amazing.

loved this hike, steep but so worth it!

Pleasant beautiful loop, definitely go out to Donner point.

This is a fairly steep but rewarding "up." We like to walk fast, but unless you're acclimated to altitude, go slow. We loved the views from all directions, the little loop at the top with history. Nice benches to enjoy the payoff from the walk. Definitely recommend.

One of the best!

Great family walk

nice vistas

This was a very beautiful trail. If you use the map it’s pretty easy to stay on track but you can adventure off if you want to as well. The sun will hit you for most of the hike so be prepared with enough water for everyone. I did this one without my 1.5 year old and I would recommend leaving the babies at home. Dogs had a blast but you’ll want to bring enough water for them too.

Nice wooded hike, along the water for a lot of it. It was more of an easy hike for us but we didn’t hike up the hill after the bridge. Instead we went straight along the water to the lower part of the lake. The end was pretty but disappointing because the water is low and we couldn’t hike to it unless we wanted to climb over rocks and drift wood. We should have conquered the hill, it probably had lake access but it was getting late. We took our Boston’s and they had lots of streams to drink from.

Took my 2015 Forester Stock all the way to the summit. Loved it and the Foz killed it!

Nice trail, came up the hard side (eagle lake). Would rate the trail a moderate. No problems for our Wranglers with 35's. It is a quite lose rocky climb up with a handful of small obstacles. Good warm up for a lifted rig and probably pretty challenging for stock vehicles.

9/15/2018: Our group including 5 adults and 3 kids (ages about 5-11) all wearing regular shoes, made the trip up and back with time to stop for lunch and views in about 5 hours. It was a stunning day to be outside as it was nice and brisk but sunny. Bring a windbreaker though- it was downright COLD with the wind up near the top and out of the tree line.
Side note: It's been several days since our hike and my calves are still barking! As others said, it isn't overly steep, but it'll still get ya!
We'll definitely be headed back! (I heard the flowers are lovely mid-summer!)

Was a ice & easy trail. Me, my husband, kids, & our dogs had a blast.

Road to get down to the actual trail is not suitable for all vehicles. Had to park up by devils tower look out cause of the road. Other then that absolutely great and fairly easy for all

Beautiful day. Pristine blue skies. Fairly easy hike. Quick 20-ish min to Azalea, and only an extra 10 to Flora. Well worth it. Pay attention to your GPS to bounce off to the right to get to the lakes. Small column of stacked stones where the trail departs the PCT, but no sign. Great time spent outdoors, and an absolutely stunning area to explore. We will be back more than a few times, I suspect.

One of my favorite hikes. Unbeatable views.

This hike is stunning with all the small lakes scattered about every mile. For backpacking, I agree with Tyler that the second half of the hike is very underwhelming because after Lindsey Lake, you are walking uphill on a road. I would definitely backpack this route again but I would do an out and back from Carr lake to Upper/Lower Rock Lake.

Very difficult finding the trailhead, first because there is no trail named Page Meadow Loop, second because the trail marker is hidden between two trees on the side of the road, third Google maps gave incomplete directions. To get to the loop you have to hike 2 miles up the Tahoe Rim Trail from the north side of Ward Creek Blvd. To find Ward Creek Blvd. turn up Pineland from Hwy 89, take Twin Peaks to Ward Creek Blvd. The elevation gain is steady. There is more than one meadow. We could not find signage indicating the start of the loop, yet there are a number of splits from the TRT, and the All Trails app did not help.

following the Tahoe Rim trail was easy because of the tree markers. But we had trouble orienting ourselves to find the loop option back from Page Meaxows. So we just retraced our steps from Page Meadow.