Hike, splash, camp at Tuolumne County lakes

Tuolumne County is largely rural, with more places to hike, fish, camp and go boating with your dog than you can shake a stick at. Its scenic lakes are tucked into dramatic mountain canyons and bowls that add to the getting-away-from-it-all experience. Here’s a look at some prominent bodies of water where you and your pup can splash, hike and play. Read more.

Tuolumne County’s ‘don’t miss’ family attractions

If you’re traveling in Gold Country with family this summer, put Columbia State Historic Park on your “must visit” list. It’s a place where lasting memories are made. On weekends, you’ll encounter rumbling (and dog-friendly) stagecoaches, itinerant musicians, bonneted ladies in sweeping skirts, and swaggering, black-hatted characters who could go mano a mano with John Wayne. For city kids, this “Gold Rush town that never died” can be as much fun as Disneyland (well, almost). Read more.

Into the Tuolumne County high country

Black and white dog on a trail in Tuolumne County

The Gold Rush-era prospectors who swarmed the Sierra Nevada foothills in the 1850s made an indelible mark on Tuolumne County, dotting the map with a string of settlements—Sonora, Columbia, Jamestown, Twain Harte, Groveland—that still have a boomtown feel, as well as a relaxed attitude toward dogs. Read more.

All aboard a choo-choo train

Photo by @wandering_wednesday

The chug-chug and urgent whistle call of an approaching train is always exciting, especially when a vintage steam engine leads the charge. How can you hear it and see it and not want to be on it? Several family-friendly excursion trains in California welcome dogs as well as parents, grandparents and youngsters aboard. Here’s a rundown.

Time out for Tuolumne County (Yosemite north entrance)

Photo by Daniel Lee.

The rugged country leading up to Yosemite’s Big Oak Flat (North) entrance boasts a pioneer history as rough-hewn as the landscape itself. Tuolumne County towns along the Highway 120/49 corridors—Oakdale, Columbia, Jamestown, Twain Hart, Groveland—still have a boomtown feel, and with it, a relaxed attitude toward dogs. Columbia, “the Gold Rush town that refused to die,” is engagingly preserved as a state historic park, its 1850s ambience captured in an array of historic buildings. Read more.