I have a long history with Lake Tahoe. When I was in my 20’s and 30’s I used to by on a corporate ski team that raced every year in Lake Tahoe. So I spent a lot of time in Lake Tahoe. I proposed to my wife in Lake Tahoe. The last time I raced for that team was in 1997. I haven’t been to Lake Tahoe since.
I had only been to Lake Tahoe during the summer once and that was just a day trip from Mammoth. I had also only been to South Lake Tahoe twice. I’m very familiar with North Lake Tahoe, but prior to the trip I knew very little about South Lake. This was clearly going to be new for all of us.
Prior to the trip I did a little research. I decided that we should pay a visit to Emerald Bay. I knew that we were just down the street from Heavenly Valley, but they didn’t seem to have much to do at the resort during the summer. I found a hike that looked promising off of US-5. I also found a potential hike around Fallen Leaf Lake. Other than that, I figured we would just wing it.
When we arrived in South Lake I was appalled. I that we had just traveled up this beautiful mountain road and found ourselves stuck on the 405. The traffic near the casinos was ridiculous. We finally reached our condo, only to find that we needed to wait in line for a half hour just to check in. Whose idea was it to come to this hole? Oh yeah, it was mine. After we got everything into the condo my son Jeff and I decided to walk down to the beach. Yes, our condo was on the beach. I was able to relax once I saw the beauty and peacefulness of the lake near sunset.
Sunday arrived with a long walk along South Lake Tahoe Blvd. to a breakfast restaurant about a mile down the road. This is the same road I referred to as the 405 and it was every bit as busy in the morning as it was the night before. To make matters worse, the walkway we were on was a bicycle freeway. Whose idea was it to come to this place? That would be me again.
After eating breakfast we took another leisurely stroll back down the bicycle freeway back to the condo. We grabbed our back packs and drove to Emerald Bay. We headed west on the 405 (South Lake Tahoe Blvd.) and then headed north on the 101 (Highway 89) and slowly (I mean slowly) made our way to Emerald Bay. We finally made it only to discover that there was no parking… anywhere. Well there was on tiny little patch of dirt that was sloped of the road at about 45 degrees. When Linda and Marissa opened their doors they fell out of the car. They quickly moved away from the car fearing that when Jeff and I got out of the car the car would roll over on to its side.
We finally made to the view point above Emerald Bay. It is gorgeous! The view from high above is absolutely breathtaking. After taking in the view we grabbed our packs and went for a hike around a neighboring lake called Cascade Lake. I’m guessing the lake is called Cascade Lake because of a large waterfall that cascades down into the lake. The waterfall didn’t have a lot of water in it since it was mid August, but it was still very pretty. What I really liked about the place was that there were far fewer people there than anywhere else that we have been so far. There was also a considerable amount of granite. I’m used to mostly volcanic rock in Mammoth, so granite is a nice change. It means that the trails are firmer, rather than the loose trails full pumice that are common in Mammoth.
After camping out by the waterfall for a good while we decided to climb a mountain. It was fun for a while. The kids quickly tired and decided to stay in a shady spot while Linda and I continued up for a while, but decided that we had better head back down before one of the kids kills the other one or something like that. I looked for 5 caches on that hike and only found 1. It was pretty awful caching, but great hiking. All in all we managed to save our day from what was shaping up to be a real wreck with all of the traffic we were dealing with.
The next day was a beach day. We spent much of the day just hanging out by the beach. Much to my surprise, the water was a balmy 71 degrees. I figured that a 1,000’+ deep alpine lake would never get much warmer than the 50s in the summer. While sitting on the beach Linda and I decided to rent a boat for the next day.
The next day we rented a boat from the boat rental in the marina right next to our condo. As soon as we got on the lake we headed straight for Emerald Bay. It’s just as beautiful looking up at the mountains surrounding the bay as it is looking at the bay from the mountains. The bay is a no wake zone so once you’re in the bay it’s a pretty slow ride. It’s a good thing too because there were a lot of boats in the bay. Our destination was a tiny island near the end of the bay called Fannette Island. The story behind the island is that a wealthy woman owned the mansion on the edge of the lake, called Vikingsholme, and built tea house at the high point on the island. She would take a boat every day from Vikingsholme to the island and have tea in the tea house.
Our reason for visiting the island was to find a geocache. I heeded the warning from the boat rental folks about having to cough up and least $400 to replace a propeller if I broke one. So I anchored about 30 yards offshore. It turns out that the water is quite deep 30 yards off the island as I almost ran out of anchor line. Once I anchored I dropped my GPS into a Ziploc bag and inflated it like a balloon so it would float it I lost my grip and dove in for the swim to the island. It turns out that the water was much colder in Emerald Bay than it was at the condo. I found the cache and headed back to the boat. We then maneuvered the bout to another side of the island where we all swam to shore to climb up to the tea house. We finally got back in the boat and headed out to the lake. We had enough time left to circumnavigate the lake.
We decided to go hiking on Wednesday. We learned that we could take a gondola ride up Heavenly Valley and then hike on a few designated trails. They’re very strict about where you can and can’t go. Quite honestly, the hiking wasn’t all that great. They had a zip line but we don’t know about it until we got there. It turns out that you need to make reservations to go on it and they were booked for the rest of the week. So all we could do was watch. Thursday was another beach day.
Friday rolled around and I was the only one that wanted to hike. A local geocacher had told me about a really nice place in North Lake called Five Lakes, located in the Granite Chief Wilderness between Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley. I liked the idea of hiking here for a couple of reason. First, Alpine Meadows is where I did most of my racing. So I felt a lot of nostalgia for the place. Second, I was familiar with the Granite Chief Wilderness and knew it would be very pretty. It did not disappoint. I managed to find 5 geocaches on the hike as well.
By far the highlight of the trip was the boat trip to Emerald Bay. After the traffic woes of the first two days we managed to have a good time. I’m not much for crowds so I don’t see myself going back to South Lake Tahoe anytime soon. However, we all brought back some pretty good memories of the trip.
