A long way for a dog to swim

After a 25 min drive off the highway you have a hike of over a mile to get to a place for your dog to swim.

Long version
It’s a scenic drive once you get off the highway to a beautiful lake in the foothills. I only care about off leash and swimming so I asked the ranger and he pointed me in the right direction, very nice guy. We parked by all the boaters and went through the gate to the off leash approved trail. I thought i would immediately be able to swim the dog there but there was a fence on the water side. We walked about half a mile before we saw any place where we thought we could swim and throw the ball. J
However it was a little steep and with what appeared to be a drop off. We gingerly got down to the edge and my dog couldn’t wait anymore, he jumped off a out a 5’ drop to the beach. I walked a little and found a place I could slide down. The water was great and the scenery beautiful. We walked around a little and found an easier place to get up. He had no problem, but I had to crawl a bit. We went down another quarter mile to see if there was an easier place to get access to the beach but there wasn’t.
When we got back to the car we stopped at the bait shop and the cashier confirmed that is the only area dogs are allowed to swim but if I went to little further, 1 mile total, I would have reached a campsite with easy beach access.

We’ll go back here but it’s quite a time commitment to drive and walk to get some swimming time. We now usua;lay go to shadow cliffs nearby.

Nov. 30, 2018