Tucked away at the end of a short hike off the June Lake loop is the beautiful aqua blue Parker Lake. In addition to epic views, the lake holds big browns that have continued to elude us, but its namesake creek has plenty of smaller browns and brookies to keep us entertained.
Parker Lake is a great easy hike located on the north end of the June Lake Loop near Mammoth Lakes. It’s one of our favorite short hikes in the area. It’s a good hike to take our dog River on; in the summer when it’s warm she prefers shorter hikes with a destination lake so she can cool off and and play fetch in the lake.
This was (at least) our third time hiking to Parker Lake. The dirt road to the lake off the main loop gets a little rocky at the end, but are usually many sedans parked at the trailhead. It was still early in the summer so it wasn’t terribly warm, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the beginning of the hike is completely exposed. We always recommend doing this hike in the morning or on a cooler, cloudy day.
The hike starts out straight up! A nice little incline to wake you up and get the heart pumping. If you need a break on your way up this section, you can turn around and take in a view of Mono Lake in the distance.
The steepest part of the hike ends at the Ansel Adams Wilderness sign. There are a couple short uphill sections after this, but the worst and most exposed part is over. The sage brush start to be joined by pine and fir trees – which means shade!
As we made our way up the trail we could hear Parker Creek in the steep canyon to the right of the trail. There’s a brief glimpse of the creek before the trail turns away from it towards an open area. Luckily there were trees around now for some shady breaks.
After one final hill, aspens start making an appearance and the trail rejoins the creek. There are more and more aspens as the trail approaches the lake; this would be a fantastic fall hike for leaf-peepers!
In less than two miles, the trees give way to the the beautiful aqua blue waters of Parker Lake, framed by the towering Mt. Lewis, Parker Peak, and Mt. Wood.
The lake’s shoreline doesn’t have any large beach areas because of the steep canyon and has trees and bushes all the way around. It’s definitely not the most fly fishing friendly, but that does not stop the fishermen – including us!
We made our way to the left to find a spot for some lunch and to toss in a line. There were quite a few people at the lake – this is a pretty popular trail and there were many groups dotted around the entire shoreline. There were also many dogs swimming, much to River’s dismay. She gets FOMO when we restrain her from swimming while we’re fishing. We don’t have as many cute puppy at a lake photos as we normally do since she was busy whining about not swimming and barking at a duck.
We fished for about an hour or so to no avail. We’ve seen photos of some large browns caught at Parker but they have continued to elude us. We’ve been skunked at this particular lake every time we’ve come (save for maybe one average brown many years ago). There were a couple float tubes out in the middle of the lake while we were there and we didn’t notice them catch anything either, which is surprising to us since it was still early summer. Alas, maybe someday!
Parker Creek makes up for the lack of fish caught from the lake. There are usually many eager but smaller brookies and browns in the outlet creek. We usually throw on a small dry fly (like a Parachute Adams or Elk Hair Caddis) and catch a few to satisfy us on our hike out.
We’ll need to make the short trek to Parker Lake in the fall one day to see the trees change color and hopefully hook into one of lake’s larger trout residents!
