Labor Day is the last real weekend of West Coast summer, and these three lake towns are how to spend it
Every West Coast local knows the trick: the crowds that jammed the coast all July thin out right after Labor Day, but the water’s still warm enough for one last swim. Skip the beach traffic this year and build the weekend around a lake instead.
One in Washington, one in Oregon, one in California — each with its own reason to get off the interstate.
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Lake Chelan, Washington — 50 miles long and the third-deepest lake in the country
Lake Chelan carves a fjord-like trench through the eastern Cascades for 50.4 miles, plunging to 1,486 feet at its deepest point — the third-deepest lake in the United States. It’s about 170 miles and a three-hour drive from Seattle, which makes it a real weekend trip instead of a day-trip stretch.
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The town of Chelan sits at the lake’s south end, ringed by orchards and vineyards that make the drive in almost as good as the destination. Silver Beach is the easy, obvious spot to post up for an afternoon, though the lake’s far northern end hides the roadless village of Stehekin if you want to turn this into a bigger trip.
Day-use parking at Lake Chelan State Park needs a Washington Discover Pass — cheap insurance against a ticket, and it covers the whole car for the day.
Elk Lake, Oregon — 32 miles down a highway built just for lakes
Cascade Lakes Highway (Century Drive) runs 66 miles southwest out of Bend, and Elk Lake sits about 32 miles in — a 40-minute drive that passes half a dozen other lakes worth pulling over for, including Sparks Lake a little further up the road.
At 405 acres with 5.1 miles of shoreline, Elk Lake is big enough for swimming, boating, and windsurfing to happen at once without anyone getting in anyone else’s way. It sits inside Deschutes National Forest, so day-use parking runs on a Northwest Forest Pass rather than a state one.
This is the lake to pick if the group can’t agree on one activity. Paddleboarders, sailboats, and swimmers share it without much friction, which isn’t true of every lake on this list.
June Lake, California — the loop that skips Yosemite’s Labor Day gridlock
June Lake sits on the June Lake Loop, a 16-mile detour off Highway 395 that strings together four lakes — June, Gull, Silver, and Grant — without going anywhere near Yosemite’s holiday-weekend traffic. It’s about 21 miles, or 24 minutes, from Mammoth Lakes, and 12 miles south of Lee Vining.
Mono Lake sits just up the highway if the group wants one stranger stop before or after — its tufa towers make an easy add-on from June Lake.
It’s a 4-to-5-hour drive from Los Angeles, long enough that this one works better as the anchor of the whole weekend than a side trip squeezed into it.
Late summer means checking current conditions before any of these three. Wildfire smoke and last-minute closures are a real possibility across the Cascades and the Eastern Sierra by early September, so a quick look at local alerts before you load the car saves the whole trip.
Which one’s getting your last long weekend of the year?
Trip tips: grab a rental car to get between all three, lock in your hotel before Labor Day weekend books solid, or skip both and book a camper van instead.
Rules and fees change — always confirm current requirements before you go.
