Dragon Lake, CA

Overview Dragon Lake is an 11,083ft alpine lake about 500 feet above the Rae Lakes in Kings Canyon National Park. It's a short dayhike option for any backpackers camping in the popular Rae Lakes area.


Hike
While this isn't an official trail, there's a well-defined route that starts on the PCT just south of the main camping area at Middle Rae Lake, about 150 yards from the sign for the food storage locker there.The route crosses a small grassy meadow and trickling creek before beginning the steep climb uphill. In a few spots, the route might be tough to follow, but continuing uphill will not lead you wrong, and you'll likely pick up the path again if you're not always on it.

After about 0.4 miles, the climb moderates and then drops a bit before passing through a shallow basin and then climbing the last little slope to the banks of the lake.

The north shore can be easily traversed for an additional half mile or so with plenty of opportunities for spots to take a break. Views across the lake to the geologically colorful namesake Dragon Peak along with Dragon Tooth and North Dragon Pass make this a worthwhile side trip from the Rae Lakes area.

There are no visible use routes beyond the lake, though it appears that ambitious hikers could continue higher in a couple of directions. Most will choose the easy path and follow their path back downhill to Rae Lakes.

Camping
While it appears that relatively few people camp along this route, there's an impacted site that looks nice on the north side of the outflow creek at the west end of the lake. Other less-impacted possibilities exist at the higher parts of the trail, some with very nice views down to the Rae Lakes.

2025-08-12 chumley