Drive Around Bass Lake, CA.

Friday 5/4/2012

While staying at Bass Lake Resort, we took a day to drive around the lake. Bass Lake is 4.2 miles long and 0.40 miles wide.

Our campground is located on the northeastern shore of the lake. Driving north, we came to," The Falls", of the Sierra National Forest.

The water was very low at this end of Bass Lake.

We walked over to where the water was coming into the Bass Lake. Willow Creek is the primary inflo of the lake. The Falls seemed pretty mild, from what we had seen recently in Yosemite National Park.

Looking out to where the water was going to.

We drove further and reached the north end of Bass Lake. You can see the dock and boat lift are on dry ground in the picture.

As we started to travel south on the west side of Bass Lake, we stopped at Denver Church Day Use of Bass Lake.

Here again the lake very low.

As we left, we over heard someone say that the lake was all the way up to the road, one year.

We stopped next across from, "The Fork Resort," for this view. The Fork Resort has cabins and a restaurant, that is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The Fork Resort has been owned and operated for three generations by one family.

We stopped at a pull out shortly after The Fork Resort for our sack lunch.

After lunch, we came to the middle of Bass Lake on the west side, and found, The Pines resort, across from us.

Bass Lake Resort, where we were staying, is directly behind the Pines Resort.

The Pines on Bass Lake.

We parked at another pull out across from The Pine. There was a non marked quiet beach here. A great place to  come if you have your dog with you.

A look north of the non marked beach.

A look south on the non marked beach.

As we walk back to the car, we noticed a home with a large penisula in front of it.

Our next stop was "Lakeside", on the west side of Bass Lake.

We should have had our sack lunch here. We both though the west side of the lake was much prettier that the east side.

The Amphitheater at Lakeside on Bass Lake.

Looking south from Lakeside on Bass Lake.

Across from Lakeside is the National Forest Campground, named Lupine- Cedar Bluff.

The fee is $26 a night.

The campsites have no hook ups, and most do not have water views for big boys like us. We did find #6 was big enough for us, and had a lakeview.

As we continued our drive around the lake, we noticed what looked like a swimming area with a dock around it. There was a trail from the campground down to it.

As we get close to the souther end of Bass Lake, we came to another campground with boat slips. I think the campground was called Spring Cove.

At the souther tip of the lake, was Wishon Point. There is a campground at Wishon Point also, but we didn't go into the campground, so I can not tell you much about it.

At Wishon Point there was some dregging going on.

Next to the dregging is the dam.

Wishon Point had a boat ramp avaible.

Wishon Point boat ramp.

As we were leaving we saw this guy pulling out this boat. I told him he had a nice looking boat. He told us it was made in England. He had bought it at an auction in New York. He told us it is called a McNaulty.

When you pass the dam, the lake ends, but the road does not. The road goes a few miles on the rim of a canyon.

The road finally came to a T, and we went southeast, under this. It is a water slewth of some kind. Maybe where the  water goes, when the dam releases some water?

The road went past Manzanita Lake Picnic Area.

Nice lake, but with Bass Lake just up the road, why come here?

Joe found this map of Bass and Manzanita Lake area on a board at Manzanita Lake.

Next we went through the town of North Fork, which has a large population of the Mono Tribe. North Fork, CA. is also the geographic center of California. 

The road continued north on the rim of the eastern side of the canyon.

We approach the SE corner of Bass Lake. We could see the Crane Valley Dam, on Bass Lake.

The dam has two parts. One part is the long side that dams the lake, and the other part is on the east side that has the spillway. As you can see from the spillway, the lake is really low.
Bass Lake Resort was just a few miles from here, ending our day drive around Bass Lake.