Some more Tahoe

I have a few more pictures from the Tahoe trip up on Flickr ... some more sunset shots from King's Beach (I know, I know - more sunsets?!), some snowshoeing pics from the Tahoe Cross Country resort, and some more Truckee pics.

Sunset on Lake Tahoe:






I alluded in the last post to the fact that Nick and I spent a day together cross country skiing at Tahoe Cross Country, a x-country-only resort on the North side of the lake, California side. It's a bit hidden and out of the way, but they had Tuesday $12 trail passes, and I knew from the Brace family holiday two years ago that the trails were well-groomed and the rental equipment was top-notch. We rented skis and poles and headed out. We had a great morning of uphill cardio ... and then came the downhill drama. Thankfully I was better-conditioned this year (being active at elevation for a few days already certainly helped a bit) and I also knew better than to take downhills with reckless abandon! I still had some good spills and I even took one "steep" downhill squatting (as in butt cheeks resting on the back half of the skis) which elicited a lot of laughter and thumbs-up from passing skiers. Hey, if I'm good for anything it's the point-and-laugh. sigh. But all in all, I came away with only a few bruises (small ones) and sore (but not ruined) knees. It was a very good day! Nick had offered to take the camera backpack but honestly, I didn't trust him not to wipe out ... me of little faith ;-) He was a champ. He even decided to try out skate skiing (instead of track skiing; the skate skis have a sharper edge that let you ski more easily outside of the tracks) in the afternoon. I hate being reminded how non-athletic I am, even though I really want to be!! haha.

After spending a day out skiing we headed back to the condo and got ready for a nice dinner in Truckee. Over the mountain pass and heading into Truckee, we saw the most gorgeous dusk. It was ~20 minutes past sunset, and I could not have imagined how vibrant and beautiful the colors would have been ... I made Nick pull over at a somewhat precarious spot with traffic rushing by! I would have tromped out into the middle of the field if it weren't for the barbed wire:



The next day, I decided to go back to Tahoe Cross Country while Nick was snowboarding at Squaw - this time, I wanted to go snowshoeing and get some pictures of the lake! It was a sunny, beautiful, and warm day - great for snowshoeing!! Despite the week of warm days, there was still plenty of snow, although it was interesting to hike the same trails as the day before and see significantly more melt. Here you can see the "rings" from each snowfall that become more pronounced as the snow melts:



There's a trail at Tahoe XC that has view of Lake Tahoe. Appropriately, it's named the Lakeview Trail. (see a map of the resort HERE - the Lakeview trail is the black one). I decided to loop around on the Blue trail, which is dog-friendly (I hoped the dog-skiers wouldn't mind a random snowshoe-er on their trail) and then head up the black trail switchbacks. Sadly, I had no idea that the other side of the black trail is much less steep and therefore the only part of the trail that they bother grooming. oops. Well, the switchbacks were, um, steep, and uh ... fun? And empty!! There was much more booty-shakin and loud singing to be done on those heart-pounding slopes. At the top, I was rewarded with a great view of the lake:



I love that wispy cloud haze over the lake: in person, it was kind of an optical illusion.

And speaking of optical illusions, here are some amazing clouds like the ones I described in the last blog post: puffy but silky, smooth and magical:





There were some beautiful views of the lake from the top of the trail, and it was luckily sunny and lovely.





The skies were very blue, and I was lucky enough to catch some contrails (for Nick, of course!):





And on the way back to the lodge, I saw this amazing tree:


I drove over to Squaw to meet Nick for a little apres-ski cocktail, and then we headed into Truckee once more for the afternoon. Because we had time, we stopped up at the Rocking Stone, a 17-ton rock that used to wobble on its point when given a little push. It's housed in a gazebo up by the historical society and it no longer rocks ... after someone in their Californian wisdom decided it was a safety hazard, it was cemented in place. Yeah, this despite it being a sacred spot for the Native Americans who lived in the Truckee-Donner Sierras. Now it's just a nice viewpoint over Truckee.







We wandered down to the Old Town area and happened to cross the train tracks as a train was waiting. I loved how the mountains in the background were touched with pink from the sunset!



That same silky cloud that hung over the lake all day was still there, picking up the light of sunset. This was taken at the bridge, just over the Truckee River, right before we headed into our favorite little underground coffee shop for a warm-up.



We were inside for all of three minutes, and when we came outside the cloud looked like this (amazing how fast sunset progresses!):



One more day to go ... post forthcoming!

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!

Lake Tahoe Sunset

Here's just one shot from the trip to Tahoe (more to come). We stopped at the municipal park in King's Beach and I scurried down to the shore to get some sunset shots. It had been a warm(ish) day and the snow on the beach had partially melted. The melt had pooled into a low-lying area that formed these sluices out to the Lake. As the temperature fell that afternoon, some of the melted pool areas iced over, which is what you see here in the foreground. The way it caught the pinks and yellows of the sunset really struck me and I just hoped that the shots turned out the way I saw it ... came pretty close, methinks! I'm not one to pat myself on the back but I'm pretty proud of this shot. *blush*