5 Lakes Trail in Squaw-Alpine ski gondola battle zone
The gondola’s impacts to the adjacent wilderness area are being questioned. Photo/LTN file
By Tom Stienstra, San Francisco Chronicle
From a Sierra crag at north Tahoe, with one sweep of the eye you can look across towering peaks and down into a valley — and take in a landscape shaping up as the next big turf battleground in California.
On one side are the world-renowned Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows ski areas and their lodging, restaurants and shops. On the other side is the Granite Chief Wilderness, which abuts land where a contested 13,000-foot gondola is proposed to rise up to the ridge and link the ski areas.
In the middle, the Five Lakes Trail rises through a section of Alpine Meadows, including one stretch in which hikers walk beneath a ski lift trolley line and base. The trail then tops the ridge at 7,400 feet, passes the wilderness boundary and feeds hikers to a mosaic of five lakes, small and jeweled. It is one of the best short hikes in the High Sierra. For extended trips, the trail then connects a few miles beyond to the Pacific Crest Trail.
