Angel Lake

Angel Lake seems like it should be somewhere else, but nevertheless there it is, a lovely alpine mountain lake not far from Wells out in the high Nevada desert. I read about the lake in a tourist pamphlet I found in the Wells chamber of commerce. The pamphlet said it’s a popular recreational area. Well, it looked too good to pass up, so naturally I had to go see for myself. Wow, what a surprise! It sits at 8,378’ elevation tucked into the summit of the East Humboldt Range and is surrounded on three sides by granite cliffs, giving it the look of a Sierra lake. Greys Peak at 10,674’ and a group of pinnacles (Chimney Rock) form those cliffs. Geologically speaking, the lake is what they call a glacial tarn. I looked that up ... a tarn is simply a mountain lake that’s formed in a cirque, an amphitheater-like valley carved into a mountain slope by a glacier and then dammed up at one end by a moraine (pile of rocks).

    You can go there to camp. There’s a nice 26-site RV park, with hookups, near the lake, or you can dry camp at the campground at the lake. While there, you can fish, because it’s stocked annually with trout. Or you can hike. There’s a five-mile roundtrip trail that leads to another alpine lake. Or if those two choices don’t fit your desires, then you can go there to picnic. There are eleven sites at water’s edge. While there perhaps you’ll see the wildlife: bighorn sheep, mountain goats, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, and birds of prey. If all else fails, then go there just because.

    The trip to the lake begins in Wells. The road is a twelve-mile scenic byway. It’s easy to find, only goes to one place, Angel Lake and it’s paved all the way. It’s like a Sierra road; closed with the first heavy snowfall and opened about mid-May. For those who don’t like heights, it might be a little intimidating because there’s no shoulder and no guardrails, and a whole lot of curves ... one false move and it’s bad news. You’ll want to go slowly anyway, because it will give you a chance to appreciate the flora on the way up. First there are the sagebrush fields in Clover Valley. If it’s early morning rolled down the windows and drink in the great aroma of moist sage, not too many smells are better than that. As you climb you move through pinon pine, and then mountain mahogany, quaking aspen and timber pine, all good stuff.

    On my last trip this past June, the mountain slopes were filled with yellow wildflowers. I couldn’t stop, no place to park. They looked to be dwarf sunflowers. When I arrived at the lake, I was stunned to find only a family of four there. It wasn’t the popular recreational area on this day. And that might be the case at recreational areas throughout the U.S. in this the age of budget sequestration. The campground was closed for the foreseeable future!

    At first I had a romantic notion that the lake was named because it was a piece of heaven. Well it is, but that’s not why. It was named in honor of Warren M. Angel who was an early rancher in the valley below. Angel Lake is the most picturesque of the Nevada Lakes and it’s one more piece of evidence that shatters the conventional thinking about Nevada. It’s not just a desert. 

Q