Hiking Fern Lake Trail - June Lake, California

I spent an amazing four day weekend in June Lake recently, celebrating at a bachelorette party for one of my best friends. We did many super fun things - beer at June Lake Brewing, swimming in June Lake, dancing to Lizzo, barbecuing, etc. A huge highlight was a short but hard hike up to the incredible Fern Lake.

The trail to Fern Lake is only 3.2 miles, but it gains around 1,500 feet of elevation. It's really steep - apparently the trail builders didn't believe in switch backs. I think there's only a couple on the whole trail! There are also a few short sections that are closer to scrambling than hiking. It's also at altitude, starting above 7,000 feet and topping out around 8,900 feet. The trail is rated as difficult - which I agree with. Everyone in our group struggled at some point, but we took it slow with lots of breaks and we made it to the top.

We parked at the Yost Creek/Fern Lake Trailhead - even on a beautiful Saturday during a busy weekend there was plenty of parking. The trail was easy to find and we headed up Yost Creek Trail, which would eventually fork into Fern Lake Trail. The trail starts climbing immediately through an aspen grove. It was really mosquito-y through this part, but there were also fields of mariposa lilies, which was incredible.

After about half a mile, we were out of the mosquitos and aspens, and the trails started to have incredible views of the surrounding mountains, the green valley below us, and waterfalls off in the distance. At about one mile into the hike, the Yost Creek Trail heads east and crosses Fern Creek - which was raging and basically a waterfall when we were there. The Fern Lake Trail is the right fork and heads steeply up. While the whole route is a steep climb, this next ~0.25 mile section is the steepest, loosest and most technical. It's also exposed and hot.

Eventually, the trail flattens out for a bit and we got back in the cool shade of the trails. This flat section (less than 0.2 miles) is a nice respite from the mostly relentless climb, but we weren't totally done climbing yet (despite what the well-meaning but entire wrong trail runner we encountered told us). After another ~0.1 miles of climbing, Fern Lake came into view.

It was totally worth the work to get there! We shared summit beers & snacks and a few of us jumped in the very cold lake before heading back down the trail. The descent was much easier physically than the climb up, but it required a lot of mental energy since it was dusty and rocky. We all slipped a few times, but luckily no one got hurt. Before we knew it, we were back at the car. (Click here for my Strava route for just the downhill. I forgot to turn on my watch for the trip up.) We made a beeline for June Lake Brewing for hard earned Hawaiian food from Ohana's 395 and delicious IPAs (This summer, I'm loving June Lake Brewing's Changing of the Guard IPA). This trail is incredible, and I'd highly recommend it to in shape hikers who have experience with steep, sandy climbs.

Trail Stats
Mileage: 3.2 miles
Elevation Gain: ~1,500 feet
Difficulty: Difficult
Northern Paiute, Western Mono/Monache, and Central Sierra Miwok Land

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