Adventures in Lake Tahoe

I wrote about road tripping to Lake Tahoe.  Now it's time to find out what we did once we got there.

Friday was our big adventure day.  But before the adventure there was some important sleeping time.  I let Robyn sleep in as late as she wanted.  I woke up early and had a small breakfast.  It actually got pretty cold in the morning and I started to fill a little chilled.  (This is a new thing that happens to me now.  It turns out losing 60 pounds makes you lose some insulation.)

I decided to go outside and soak in the hot tub by myself.  That was my primary activity all morning long.

I have to say, enjoying the quiet morning with the chirping birds, the hot tub, the brisk air and the beautiful view was the greatest thing ever.  The only thing that would have made it better was if Robyn joined me.  I kept hoping she would wake up and come out, but she was enjoying her sleeping, so I'm glad she got to do what she wanted to do.  At least I had my underwater camera with me to keep me entertained.

This is what it looked like in the hot tub

This is what the hot tub saw when it looked at me.

When I was done hot tubbing I went and took a shower and my loud bumbling throughout the cabin eventually woke Robyn up.  That meant it was time for our adventure to begin.

I had selected a couple hikes that I thought would be fun.  The first was the Rubicon trail beginning in DL Bliss state park.  My good friend, the internet, said that it had some of the most beautiful views of Lake Tahoe.  It's a trail that follows the shoreline, sometimes climbing up 3 or 400 feet above the water to give views looking down, other times going all the way down to the beach.  I figured it would be a good workout going up and down, but also a good experience in nature seeing lots of beauty.

I had planned to walk a good 2 miles of it (4 miles round trip.)  Unfortunately, the state of California had other plans.  When we got to the park we found this.

The park was closed.  It didn't even have anything to do with government shutdown.  It was just closed for the season.

That sign was accompanied by a barricade.  There was no way our car was getting through.  But we didn't let that stop us from our adventure.  We just started hiking earlier than we thought.

Beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?

The one advantage to the closed park was that we had the whole place to ourselves.  We ran into a total of maybe 10 people the whole day.  This road beyond the barricade was 2 miles from the trail head.  Round trip that turned our 4 mile hike into 8 miles.  But it was sure beautiful.

There were lots of Lake views.

The deep blue of the water was amazing.

I never got tired of the beautiful trees and water.

Of course, 8 miles is a lot of walking.

We walked through Mordor.

We found the big trees of Endor.

We even made it to the beach.

The water was so beautiful.  Robyn said it just made her want to swim in it.  I told her that was not recommended, since the water is about 40 degrees.  She said she at least needed to touch it.  Usually I'm the one that needs to touch things, so I certainly didn't object.

After our 8 mile hike, we discussed if we wanted to do the second hike I had planned.  Since we had already gone 8 miles, which was double what we had planned, we were feeling a little tired.  But we didn't want to miss out, so we went to our second destination.

I had heard (again from my friend, the internet) that there were beautiful views on the trail to Cascade Falls.

Robyn is tired, and concerned that we are in the land of desolation.

 The good news is that we never saw the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet.

However, it definitely was not the super simple hike we had planned on.  First, this hike had the same problem our first hike had.  The park was closed, which meant we couldn't park at the trail head.  It was supposed to be a 2 mile hike, but there was an extra quarter mile added each way by walking from outside the park.  Plus, the internet said it was only a 150 foot climb.  The elevation change was 150 feet, but the trail went down and up at least 3 times, so the climb was more like 450 feet.  Normally, that amount of climb would not be a big deal, but our total walking that day was now amounting to 10.5 miles.  We were some tuckered out little tikes.

Nevertheless, the views were still very pretty.  The trail winds around Cascade Lake.

This is a view of Cascade Lake along the trail.

Also the timing of the hike allowed us to see the views across Lake Tahoe as the sun was setting.  We had Cascade Lake in the foreground and Lake Tahoe further away.

The camera didn't fully capture it, but the purple mountains were beautiful.

Later we got to watch the moon rise.

After passing the lake, the trail goes into a rocky area right before getting to the falls.  We were super tired and almost ready to turn around when we heard running water.  We continued to where we were only 100 feet away when what to my wondering eyes would appear but a naked guy.  Like totally nude, wearing nothing.  He and his girlfriend (or wife, or acquaintance, I'm not really sure, I didn't interview them) had apparently been skinny dipping.  I let Robyn know that we should probably sit down and wait a few minutes on the other side of the hill.  But we made sure to make plenty of loud noise during our waiting period.

Naked people are just like other wildlife that you encounter in nature.  You want to make plenty of noise so that they are aware you're there and you don't startle them.

Eventually, the naked team emerged from their quarantined area fully clothed.  The guy gave me a look that said, "I'm pretty sure you saw me naked and I appreciate that you aren't drawing attention to that fact."  I gave him a look that said, "Yes, I did and I'm sure glad that's over."

After their exit we climbed down into the "falls".   The waterfall was a bit anticlimactic.  It was mostly a stream that tumbles over a few rocks.  Robyn assured me that if it were early spring there would be lots of water.  I imagine in April or May it looks awesome.  In October it looks like this.  But, I guess in October visitors are infrequent enough that you can skinny dip if you feel inclined.

Doesn't it make you want to take your clothes off?  Me neither.

By the time we got back to the car, it was getting dark outside.  We had had more adventure than 2 old people like us are used to.  We went out to dinner at an italian restaurant called Scusa, in South Lake Tahoe. Foursquare told us to try the lobster ravioli.  Lobster Ravioli!  It was amazing.

That night the hot tub was my friend.  My legs and back were sore after a lot of hiking.  My old body is not used to that level of adventuring.

Are old people allowed to hike 10.5 miles in one day?  I'm not sure we should be.