Snowshoe Day in Tahoe

Well, it's been a month already, and I still don't have all of my pictures from Tahoe edited or up on Flickr. I did, however, post some pics earlier in the week.

Nick and I got into Tahoe Saturday evening, but Nick was ready to hit the slopes first thing on Sunday! Northstar had military discounts on Sundays, and they also just completely redid their cross-country section. I decided to go snowshoeing instead of cross-country skiing, and trekked out on a dedicated backwoods snowshoe trail. The day was gorgeous and sunny!


The snowshoe trail:


We were at just the right elevation for the trees to be covered in bright green moss, which was a snow-magnet:


Here you can see one of the cross-country groomed trails, with tracks for the skate-skiers:


Coming around the backside of one of the hills, the sunlight just barely filtered over the hillside and through the trees, casting gorgeous shadows down the slope:


It was my first snowshoe experience, and it was great! It had one distinct advantage over cross country skiing: no falling!! =)

Monday, Nick had gone to Heavenly for the day, so I decided to seek out a "free" snowshoeing experience. I was a bit hesitant to trek off into the wilderness solo, my outdoor navigation skills never really having been put to the test, so I wanted to head somewhere with marked trails. I had rented snowshoes for the week, so I was fully equipped for the day, and a couple Tahoe/Truckee residents we met at the campground in Big Sur had told me about a local regional park with marked trails. I went to the North Tahoe Regional Park in Tahoe Vista (just West of King's Beach), which was totally, completely, utterly EMPTY. The ranger wasn't even there to collect the $3 parking fee. Now, the day was pretty gray, and clouds had totally shrouded the lake. There was light rain predicted ... all in all, I guess it wasn't a popular day to be out snowshoeing. Fine by me! I put on my mp3 player and my snowshoes and headed out for a good long hike. I went up to the highest point, trying to get a decent view of the lake - no real luck there, considering the sun was barely peeking through the thick cloud layer.

You can just see a little bit of the lake with low-lying clouds just above it:


A little more, but the light was just so bleak:


I think that's Dollar Point in the distance:


Sadly, the sun tried to appear a few brief times over the lake, and I got so excited at one point that I scaled an awfully steep snow-covered slope to try to get a better view. Aaaaaand then I had to get back down, which was considerably more difficult. You know how when you try to walk through five feet of snow without snowshoes and you sink into the snow up to your crotch every step? Well, WITH snowshoes you only sink about a foot or so ... when you're on level ground. Uphill, it's maybe a foot and a half ... and downhill it's more like two and a half feet. And you have to go down sideways. I kept thinking "ohhhh Nick is going to KILL me if I blow out my knee! It's going to totally ruin the rest of the trip!"
All for this less-than-great shot:


The best part about hiking around in a near-empty park with nicely groomed and well-marked trails was that I didn't have to worry about anything but looking at the beautiful surroundings and shakin' my booty to the songs being piped into my ears. Oh yeah, you know I was singing along. (Out loud - Out LOUD!) There were a couple of really interesting trees that I think would be stunning in the right light. The first is a tree that had a woodpecker go to town on it - I can imagine catching the streams of daylight through the holes on a sunny day:




The other great tree was partially burned out. It might not even still be alive - it was hard to tell. But the bark was shedding and leaving behind these beautiful blond patches that contrasted with the charred center:


It was a fairly warm day, topping out around 45 (this was at lake elevation) and it did sprinkle on me a few times, but it was a great day. It was early afternoon when I was done (I successfully covered all of the trails in the park - clearly a small park!), and I was debating whether I should go back to the condo in Incline or head up to Truckee to pick up a gift for our cat-sitting neighbor. It wasn't a hard decision - Truckee it was!

Coming into town from the South, you head down one steep switchback that drops you into the heart of downtown / old town Truckee. At the top of that switchback is a wonderful restaurant that Nick and I had visited in the past: The Cottonwood. It, like much of old town Truckee, is housed in an historic building that dates back to the days when the town flourished with gold mining wealth. The Cottonwood building was actually built to be a warming hut to serve the host of winter sports on the local hillside. On the property are a few old buildings, including an old boxcar and the teeny hut that housed the motor for the very first mechanized chairlift in the world! Here's a shot of the boxcar:


I still had my snowshoes, so I strapped them on and plodded around the property. A family out sledding on a nearby hill kept pointing at me and waving - once in shouting distance, the dad yelled "Hey, are those Eskimo shoes?" They were probably befuddled that someone would tromp through the deep snow just to take pictures of old buildings! Here's a shot of downtown/old town Truckee, with an Amtrak train running through (taken from the Cottonwood property):


Coming down into old town Truckee, you pass right over the Truckee River, which flows from Lake Tahoe all the way through Reno. It's not a terribly wide river, but it's really very beautiful for much of the journey into Reno. Whenever we drive out to Tahoe or Truckee from Reno in the fall, I love being the passenger so I can watch the river whenever the road skirts it. Thankfully, it's a winding drive, so Nick doesn't mind being the driver!

In Truckee, homes line both banks of the river, just South of the train tracks:


Despite the beautifully warm weather, the snow dotted the tops of the rocks on the riverbank. I loved seeing the bottom halves of the rocks through the clear running water and the contrast with the snow-domed tops:


I was so thankful that the sun finally decided to come out (though it would have been nice if it had made that decision a little earlier in the day)! The late afternoon sun cast beautiful warm light on the river. The mountains just East of the town were still shrouded in clouds, though:


Looking to the West, the clouds were about to roll back in, so I quickly caught a view of the river as it comes through town, from the other side of the bridge:


Heading back toward Tahoe, I stopped in King's Beach just prior to sunset. This is the day prior to the picture in the last post (which was a much more beautiful sunset). Here are some shots in the half hour before sunset.

Looking to the East, with a view of the half moon:


The clouds over the lake almost always have an interesting shape and texture. The Lake is practically its own ecosystem: it's so deep it never freezes, so in a very dry mountainous climate, it is a source of evaporated water that allows clouds to form over it. As the clouds are pushed over the lake by wind, the leading edge evaporates into the dry air as soon as it crosses the mountains, and the trailing edge re-forms from water vapor coming from the lake. It makes bizarrely silky-looking clouds. Wednesday, the craziest looking cloud hung in exactly the same place for the entire afternoon and evening (pictures to come in the next post). But here's a shot from Monday, looking South:

(look at that one larger and you'll see how "silky" the cloud looks!)

Dusk that night was very tobacco-colored, which was unusual. Most other sunsets were predominantly pink and blue.


Nick and I went cross country skiing together on Tuesday (no pictures - I was scared of falling and crushing the camera!), and I will have a few more pictures of our final days in Tahoe on the blog soon!