Sierra Buttes, Mount Elwell & Haskell Peak

This was a different kind of multi-peak day — instead of one long connected route, it was three completely separate hikes from three separate trailheads, all knocked out in a single day around the Lakes Basin area on the Tahoe Ogul list.

Sierra Buttes came first, up the classic trail from Packer Saddle to the old fire lookout perched on its craggy summit pinnacle. The views straight down onto the Sardine Lakes from the lookout platform are some of the best in the whole northern Sierra, and a plaque near the top honors the crew who built the summit stairway back in 1964.

From there it was a drive over to the Lakes Basin Campground trailhead for Mount Elwell, a shorter but still steep climb past Long Lake — a gorgeous lake with small islands scattered across it — to a boulder-pile summit with a clean view back at Sierra Buttes across the whole basin.

Last was Haskell Peak, reached from yet another trailhead off Haskell Peak Road to the north. It's the shortest and mellowest of the three, a quiet single-track climb through forest and meadow to a talus summit with a long view back at Sierra Buttes one more time, tying the whole day together.

Roughly 11.5 miles combined and about 4,200 feet of gain across the three hikes, with plenty of driving in between — a great way to knock out three Ogul peaks and see the best of the Lakes Basin in a single long day.