5 masks up for lake almanor in northern california . i have so much to say about this trip that i am rolling out a multi-part series answering various questions about the area including. click here to see the other posts. today’s question is
why might i want to visit lake almanor in northern california?
in the other posts you can see reviews of wally’s peninsula market and red onion grill and the airbnb we stayed in on lake almanor. now, just a little bit more about the lake itself.
first and foremost, this lake provided the single best fresh water lake swimming experience i’ve had in 23 years of living in northern california. by that i mean, i found the water to be clean, deep, refreshing but warm enough to really hangout in (and the lake not so busy that i was in danger of being hit by a boat while swimming). the only other vaguely comparable such experiences i’ve had were in a) in the (now defunct) private van vleck park near rancho murieta on a dammed up part of the consumnes river; b) in lake margaret which is a bit colder and requires a 2.5 mile hike in.
lake almanor, located in plumas county near lassen volcanic national park, has a few towns on it. no doubt there are various nice places to rent and stay. the town of chester is the largest but i didn’t see any areas along the lake that i considered nice enough to stay in (that doesn’t mean they aren’t there, they just aren’t visible from the highway). we stayed in the peninsula area. in addition to the condo we stayed in has a nice bunch townhouses next door to us called the almanor lakefront village which looked very appealing with a really nice private beach and dock. nearby on one side were a lot of huge houses that looked like they were probably family owned but someone no doubt rents them. on the other was a decent looking rv park (possibly affiliated with almanor lakefront village). i would stay there if i had an rv.
a word about activity on the lake. we were there mostly mid-week in july of 2020, the pandemic in full swing. clearly the lake is a site of much boating activity. there are slips everywhere. many boats of all types but mostly motor are docked. while we did see motor-boating, party boats, and jet-skiing every day, even though we were clearly in a busy developed corner of the lake, it was fairly quiet, not overwhelming and allowed for the non motorists, whether swimmers or kayaks to have plenty of save haven. We wondered if it would get a lot busier on the weekend. Friday evening bled into Saturday morning without any noticeable uptick but we did check out at 11am. It’s possible that weekends are normally crazy.
