Emerald Pools
Emerald Pools is a .7 mile, easy, moderately trafficked hike located in Nevada City, CA. These natural swimming pools are surrounded by marbled rocks and mini waterfalls! when you hike in, you’ll find a large swimming area but if you go past this, you’ll see a bunch of narrow catwalks with water running through them. Very purrrty!
MY TRIP IN A NUTSHELL:
MONTH. Early September
TIME OF DAY. ~9:30AM
PERMIT REQUIRED. NO
Dogs allowed. Yes!
Elevation gain. 45 ft
TRAILHEAD ADDRESS. CLICK HERE
PARKING. THERE are two small parking lots immediately before and after the south yuba river bridge. There is an additional parking/turn out further up Bowman lake road (see pictures below)
OUT-N-BACK. .07 MILES
Trail & Parking Information
For emerald pools in nevada city, ca
Emerald Pools is located in tahoe national forest. in this particular area, you are not allowed to camp or leave your vehicle overnight. there are a couple campsite close by, see Rucker Lake LDS Camp and lake spalding campground (unfortunately Spalding campground is closed until the end of 2020).
The parking lot is fairly easy to get to, i went on a weekday and it wasn’t crowded at all. However, i can see parking becoming and issue on weekends. below shows the trailhead and the three main parking options:
The trail is located at the base of the main parking lot. The trail itself is super short, about a 10 minute walk, if that!
My Trip!
about .5 miles into the trail, you’ll see the main pool which is a perfect little swimming area. in order to see the mini waterfalls and cool catwalks (as i’m calling them), you have to go further up. There isn’t a clear path so you’ll have to trace the outline of the main pool and carefully climb over the rocks:
The rocks are pretty epic btw:
Shortly after waking past the main pool, you’ll see the catwalks. the water is super clear and the landscape is GORGEOUS!
if you keep going further up, you’ll see more mini waterfalls!
And here’s the doggos, trying to figure out how to save me:
Such a pretty yet short hike to get to, highly recommend checking out emerald pools in nevada city, ca!
enjoy!