Redding: Tangle Blue Lake
A lakeside campsite awaits at the end of this 4.2-miler that passes old-growth cedars, a mining camp, and meadows splashed with wildflowers.
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Mapped by Leon Nelson

©Leon Nelson
Trail Facts
- Distance: 6.7
Waypoints
TBL001
Location: 41.2298812866211, -122.70378112793
From Tangle Blue trailhead (4,684 ft.), head SSW on Grand National Trail (old logging road)
TBL002
Location: 41.2278213500977, -122.707511901855
R @ Y
TBL003
Location: 41.2282257080078, -122.710433959961
Cross Tangle Blue Creek on steel bridge and start 200-ft. climb
TBL004
Location: 41.229564666748, -122.714111328125
R @ Y, curl NW through deeply carved canyon cradling Tangle Blue Creek into Trinity Alps Wilderness
TBL005
Location: 41.2227363586426, -122.728042602539
Dirt road changes to trail, pass outlet stream of Mosquito Lake hidden 1,400 ft. above
TBL006
Location: 41.2200126647949, -122.731140136719
R @ Y, cross seasonal creek. In the steep hill to S rests the old Grand National Mine, a leftover of the 19th-century gold rush
TBL007
Location: 41.2174644470215, -122.738739013672
Cross seasonal flows of Marshy Creek and climb among giant cedars draped with bright-green moss into a small meadow colored by wildflowers
TBL008
Location: 41.2173614501953, -122.741195678711
L @ Y
TBL009
Location: 41.215705871582, -122.742195129395
Cross Tangle Blue Creek near the old site of Messner Cabin and ascend last 350 ft. through firs and pines
TBL010
Location: 41.2080192565918, -122.744094848633
Tangle Blue Lake (5,746 ft.). Several lakeside sites; grab one on the white-sand beach on S shoreline. The peak above you is unnamed; snap photos of the alpenglow
Tangle Blue Lake
Location: 41.2078514099121, -122.743698120117
©Leon Nelson