NorCal Dog Trails: Four Lakes Loop Deluxe

Near: Weaverville
Distance: 33 Miles (3 Days)
Elevation: 4,700 to 8,200 feet
Vegetation: Pine Forest
Last Visit: October 2020

The summit of Siligo Peak and Sawtooth Peak in the background.

The Four Lakes Loop is probably second only to the Canyon Creek Lakes as the headliner hike of the Trinity Alps. The greater climb involved for Four Lakes keeps fewer people from doing this route than Canyon Creek Lakes, but because it's at higher elevation and melts out later. The shorter access window intensifies the crowding a bit in the mid-late summer. We were out on a chilly October weekend and still saw lots of folks, so I would really advise avoiding summer holiday weekends on this route as competition will be fierce for the limited camping spots at the lakes.

The core of the loop is a ring around Siligo Peak, visiting four small lakes tucked in their own steep ravines. Many hike descriptions don't make this clear, but Siligo Peak is easily summited via a use trail from the ridge between Deer and Summit lakes and absolutely should not missed. If you're short on time skip anything else, but not Siligo Peak. It's one of the most beautiful walk- up summits in California.

The hike described here is a 'deluxe' version of the four lakes loop. Really it should be called the '5/3 Loop' for five lakes and three peaks.

Rules

This route is in the Trinity Alps Wilderness in the Shasta Trinity National Forest. Wilderness permits are required for overnight trips, but there is no entry quota (as of 2020 anyway), so you can pick one up at the outdoor kiosk at the Weaverville ranger station on your way in. No need to reserve one months in advance as with most Sierra permits. A separate California Fire permit is required to operate a camping stove. These can be purchased at the Weaverville Ranger station or online at any time. No permits are required for day use. Dogs can be off leash if under effective voice control.

Trailhead

The Stoney Ridge Trailhead. The road to the trailhead is not shown on google maps, but if you turn off onto Stonewall Pass Road just east of Stoney Point campground on highway 3 and just follow that road up, there are several intersections but for most of them one fork seemed clearly to be the main road and that took us to the right place. The trailhead is just a pullout with room for a handful of cars across from a clearly marked trail. No facilities or fees.

The Stoney Ridge Trailhead

Route Notes

The most common route to four lakes is to start at the Long Canyon trailhead and approach through Bee Tree Gap. The advantage of that route is that the four lakes are doable in a single overnight trip (for relatively fit hikers). We did another popular variant, going over Stonewall Pass. This option is longer and adds more climb, but makes it easy to tack on a fifth lake (Echo Lake) and a great summit (Granite Peak). We also tacked on a completely gratuitous climb almost to the summit of Seven Up Peak, mostly just to get a good view of Sawtooth Ridge, one of my favorite features of the Trinity Alps. The last bit up Seven Up Peak is off trail. I think it should be doable for most fit hikers and dogs without any technical climbing, but we ran out of time to make it back to camp before sunset. All told this route was 33 miles with a bit over 13,000 feet of climb we spaced over three days. You can knock that down closer to 11,000 feet of climb if you skip the gratuitous side trip to Seven Up. Between crowd issues, early summer snow pack, and the climbs I definitely recommend doing this loop as a late season hike after Labor Day.

We started off by going over Stonewall Pass (7400') and skipping the turn to summit Granite Peak, leaving that for our last day. We actually failed to notice that turnoff at all on the way up and only found it on the way down. It was marked by an old remnant of a sign laying on the ground next to a faint use trail on the second wide, sweeping switchback below Red Mountain Meadows. After going over Stonewall Pass and enjoying the views south over Trinity Lake and north to the heart of the Trinity Alps, you drop down 600 feet before climbing that right back to Little Stonewall Pass (7400'). Just before Little Stonewall Pass you have an opportunity to take a short detour on a use-trail to Echo Lake. This would make an excellent camp site and probably be less crowded than the lakes around Siligo peak on busier weekends. Over Little Stonewall Pass you again give up about 400 feet before climbing up to Deer Creek Pass (7600') to gain an excellent view of Deer Lake.

One could camp at Deer Lake and the views are great, but you're kind of on display for everyone coming over this pass as there aren't many trees about the lake and the steep hillsides above it. We continued to Summit lake, which entails a few hundred feet more of descent then climb along a very steep hillside to cross over the very steep ridge between Deer and and Summit Lakes. Summit Lake is the biggest lake of the four with the most campsites, and importantly the most trees to feel some privacy from other groups camping about, but it has the least wow-factor of the four lakes.

On Day 2 we started with a morning summit of Siligo Peak (8100'), retracing our steps to the ridge above Summit Lake and taking the use-trail northwest to the summit. There were a few places where there were several different faint trails braiding through the manzanita brush near the summit, but several options seemed to work. The summit consists of two rocky outcrops. The northern one is the true summit, but the southern outcrop is more comfortable to sit and enjoy the spectacular view of Seven Up and Gibson Peaks to the east, the massive block of Sawtooth, Hilton, Thompson, and Caesar peaks to the west, and Mount Shasta looming on the horizon to the north east.

From Siligo we returned to the main loop and proceeded in the counter-clockwise direction dropping all the way down below Deer Lake to a little puddle called Round Lake on some maps, around 6200 feet. Normal people will want to stay left at the upcoming intersection, but we turned right and made our climb up the Granite Lake Trail. This trail section is lightly used and there was a lot of overgrowth on the lower sections, but the route became easier to follow after the first couple hundred feet of climb. Sadly at the ridge we couldn't quite see Granite Lake. From there we turned north on the very narrow sketchy trail side-hilling around Seven Up Peak so we could take the off-trail approach to the summit from the north side. That approach was pretty easy up to around 7700 feet. The last push to the summit looked fairly steep and scree covered. Probably not to bad, but it looked like it would take more time than we had so we declared victory at a small false summit and turned back. Tacking on Seven Up Peak does seem doable as an add-on to Four Lakes, but I guess it's only advisable during high summer with lots of daylight.

Turning back we retraced our steps down to 'Round Lake' and started our last big (1200 feet) climb up to Luella Lake and over the ridge to Diamond Lake. Luella Lake is definitely the quietest of the four and would be your only hope to have one to yourself on any weekend. Diamond Lake is generally the most popular campsite of the bunch with fantastic views to the major peaks to the west. From here it's just a short sharp 300' climb over the next ridge to return to Summit lake.

On the third day we retraced our steps over Deer Creek, Little Stonewall and Stonewall passes, then dropped our big packs to detour up Granite Peak (8000'). The trail to Granite peak from just below Red Mountain Meadow is fun but a bit narrow and sketchy. Keep your eyes open as there a few switchbacks that are easy to miss and the upper sections include some side-hilling on very steep slopes that are not difficult but can be a bit vertiginous for some. Lori felt a bit uncomfortable for many upper sections so exposed on such a steep open slope. We put Presto on a leash for part of this section just in case he slipped on the narrow, crumbling trail. It would have been better to have him clipped into a good harness. The summit of Granite Peak is outstanding, however, and is highly recommended if you can negotiate the steep sketchy trail.

CalTopo Map: https://caltopo.com/m/4NJK