From the Glen Alpine trailhead parking area you walk west about I.I miles on a closed road past private homes to where a trail begins just beyond Glen Alpine Springs. Nathan Gilmore discovered these mineral springs-high in bicarbonate, chloride, sodium, and calcium-while looking for his stray cattle in 1863. They were then gushing at about 200 gallons an hour. In the late 1870s Gilmore began bottling the carbonated water, which soon achieved a reputation, and he developed Glen Alpine Springs into a very popular resort.

  Start up the Glen Alpine Trail, which soon climbs southeast about 200 yards before climbing west up a rocky, joint-controlled gully. You make a switchback south out of the gully, curve around a low ridge, and walk west again to a small, waist-deep pool with a tiny fall splashing into it. Just beyond it, on a flat immediately before the trail bends northeast as it starts a switchbacking climb, we arrive at a junction with the Grass Lake Trail. From here, head a few yards west, jump across Gilmore Lake's outlet creek, which here is part of the Desolation Wilderness boundary, and follow the trail southwest up a brushy slope to reach a grassy pond that is an overflow of Glen Alpine Creek. The best spot to cross this creek is at some rapids below the pond, where water flows east down a small, granitic, 20-foot-high V gorge. Beyond this crossing our trail winds almost up to the outlet creek of Lake Lucille. You may see an older trail that still climbs southwest to it before curving northwest to Grass Lake, but our trail curves north, passes northwest through a V trough, and then curves southwest and descends through another one. Joint control certainly expresses itself in this granodiorite bedrock. Just beyond the second trough our trail meets the older trail, and 100 yards farther we are at the southeast corner of shallow Grass Lake.

  Lining the south shore are some metavolcanic rocks, below which is the lake's deepest water. Here, an eight-foot-high rock bench makes an ideal platform for diving into the lake's fairly clear water, which warms up into the mid-60s. These brown rocks contrast strongly with the gray, joint-controlled granitic ones that dam the lake's east end. Fishing is poor because the lake is relatively small and is heavily fished. However, what may be lost in the way of a trout dinner is compensated for by the lovely lakeside surrounding, including a silvery cascade from Susie Lake that splashes down the cliff northwest of us.