Red Lake Peak

Red Lake Peak, a ten thousand sixty-eight-foot mountain in Alpine County, California, near Carson Pass, is significant in western exploration history. It is believed to be the place from which John C. Frémont and Charles Preuss made the first recorded European sighting of Lake Tahoe in February 1844 during Frémont’s Sierra Nevada expedition. That crossing was considered desperate as the party struggled through the mountains toward Sutter’s Fort in search of provisions. The peak also offers broad views of the surrounding Sierra landscape and lies in an alpine climate zone where Pacific storms bring rain and especially snow.

California · United States