To satisfy my craving for experiencing the eastern Sierra, we headed up to the Lake Tahoe area. I had wanted to go to Mammoth, but all of the hikes we were interested in were still under feet of snow. I started checking for places to stay (motels, condos, etc) and ran across a last minute good deal on a condo on the Truckee River near Alpine Meadows. It turned out the agent hadn’t been keeping the calendar up-to-date, but she offered a really good deal on a three-bedroom house in Truckee.
On our drive to Truckee, we stopped at the summit of old Donner Pass Road to do a hike along the PCT north towards Flora and Azalea Lakes. I spoke with a PCT through-hiker at the trailhead and he bemoaned the amount of snow he had come through—from Crabtree Meadows to Sonora Pass he had hiked completely on snow and hadn’t had dry boots in 30 days. Indeed, 100 yards from the trailhead we hit a snowdrift across the trail that caused us to scramble a bit to get around. Because of the steepness and exposure, walking across it seemed a poor choice. My objective on the hike was to find two or three geocaches that were near the lakes. Unfortunately, the first one was a half-mile scramble off-trail, and was more difficult than Karen appreciated. So, after finding the first geocache we called it a day and headed back.
We did one nice day-hike (subject of another post), and two bike rides. Even though it was a bit breezy, the rides were very enjoyable. We started riding at the turnoff to Squaw Valley and followed the bike trail to its end on the west side of the lake at Sugar Pine Point State Park.
