Huntington Lake in February

You need snowshoes to get here, but it's really one of the nicest hikes I've ever had.

I did it regularly over the last decade. I used to drop my son off at Sierra Summit so he could snowboard with his friends all day. Then I'd walk across Highway 168 and start down the snowy access road to Huntington Lake.

 In late December, January and most of February, the snow is fluffy and fresh. It doesn't turn firm -- Sierra cement, as it's called -- until March and April.

 The snowshoes help you just float over the road and down to what would be the water's edge in summer. But the lake is drastically lower in winter.

 This is a hydroelectric lake, part of Southern California Edison Co.'s chain of lakes up here. You can see the stumps of red fir and lodgepole pine in the lake bottom. This is not a natural lake, but it's certainly part of California's water picture. Hydro power is an important part of the state's energy portfolio.

 Sitting on a snowy edge of a rock, listening to Big Creek flow into the lake, I once drifted to sleep early one afternoon and a snow shower woke me. There's nothing like waking up in the middle of silence by the sound of little popcorn snow balls pelting you. As the squall line moved in above the western ridge, I strapped the snowshoes back on and made my way to Sierra Summit.

It's a short walk. The elevation is about 7,000 feet. It's perfect for me what I'm feeling like I need to get out of the city for a day.

Thousand Island Lake, at 10,000 feet

My top five Sierra destinations are going to be published here over the next few weeks. They all have something to do with water. Really, there is very little in the Sierra that does not have anything to do with water.

 The picks are in no particular order. The first one is a sentimental favorite. It's in the photo above: Thousand Island Lake.

 It's sentimental for me because it is the headwaters of the San Joaquin River main stem. From here, the river flows more than 350 miles to the Bay-Delta and Pacific Ocean.

 The headwaters was so compelling for me when I wrote a 14-page section about the San Joaquin's revival. The section came out in 1999. The restoration agreement was signed in 2006. I was a tad premature, but the story was correct.

 This place is so gorgeous. About 10,000 feet, it is one of the best hikes I've ever experienced in the Sierra. We saw it during a backpacking trip that started at Red's Meadow and ended at Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park.

It's not far from Rainbow Fall, another wonderful Sierra landmark associated with the San Joaquin River. While the restoration gets most of the media attention, the water comes from up here. Without this part of the equation, there is no multibillion-dollar farming industry and no downstream debate about what has happened since Friant Dam was built in the 1940s.