Huntington Lake

The lake is deserted, and the forest is quiet at the far end of Huntington Lodge Road. A breeze combs through the pines and the firs. It strips a ready leaf or two from the willows that grow by the water. Fall has come to the Sierra Nevada, this third weekend in October, and the cabins on the cul-de-sac are vacant. Most are boarded up for winter, cenotaphs to a time just weeks ago when they were open and alive to the coming and going of vacationing families. Summer is a short season in the mountains -- over, some say, before it begins -- and for the owners of these cabins, a small resort known as Lakeview Cottages, the clock is running down.

After five hours of driving, night had finally caught up with us. Through the forest we caught glimpses of the lake and the flames of campfires, and by the time our high beams fell on our turnoff, we were ready to collapse. We unpacked the car and walked down to the dock. Huntington Lake, this unexpected gem in the middle of the High Sierra, lay before us, dark and still beneath the stars. It had been a spur-of-the-moment getaway, and we had been running late all day.

Thomas Curwen's nostalgic Huntington Lake feature ("Lakeside in the High Sierra," July 7) more than did justice to this magnificent wonderland. I was raised in Big Creek in the '40s and '50s and, amazingly, the area has changed little. Especially all those wonderful adventures--backpacking, fishing, hunting, trapping. The writer asked, "I wonder if the children who toast marshmallows for s'mores today will have the same feeling 30 years from now." Yes, Mr. Curwen, they will. RAY HOLM Westlake I was disappointed by your description of Huntington Lake as scruffy and not as pretty as Bass Lake.

A college student from Mission Viejo drowned while on a family outing near Huntington Lake in Fresno County after sliding down a rocky area into a churning hydraulic hole that trapped the woman under water for about two hours, authorities said Friday. Danielle Denos, 19, was swimming about 11 a.m.

Erratic winds Friday afternoon forced the evacuation of campers and cabin dwellers at Huntington Lake for a second time as crews battled to stop a raging Sierra Nevada forest fire. An undetermined number of people staying around the recreational lake were ordered to leave at midafternoon as a precaution because of fears the fire might reach the lake, said Sierra National Forest spokeswoman Robyn Smith.

Notes from a California tour: \o7 HUNTINGTON LAKE, Aug\f7 . \o7 28\f7 : This High Sierra lake is one of California's great secrets. Located about 70 crooked miles east of Fresno, about halfway between Mammoth and Yosemite, it is blessed with big pines, blue waters and relatively few people. Huntington Lake is man-made, created in the early 1900s by Southern California Edison as part of a vast hydroelectric system. Building a lake in those days wasn't easy.