Last Wednesday, Mike and I entered a local stand-up paddleboard race on Lake Tahoe. They host this event every Wednesday night during the summer and TONS of locals and visitors participate. I've always wanted to enter a race and finally Mike convinced me (and I worked up enough courage) to do one. Y'all... it. was. hard. It was approximately a 2.5 mile course and it was a little windy which added a challenge. We started in knee deep water, everyone lined up along the shore, holding their paddles and boards. When they sound the air horn, everyone pushes off, jumps on their boards, and begins the battle toward the first buoy. Mike and I stayed together during the whole race (bumping into each other several times while making turns around buoys). We even crossed the finish line together! The announcer realized we were a couple as we were paddling toward the finish and said "The couple that paddles together... stays together." :) Let's hope so!
Thursday night, we were ready to paddle again! On Thursday nights at one of the local beaches, they have free live music and it's a HUGE event! So, we paddled down and found a little spot on the beach where we could hear the music, eat some dinner, and watch the sun set. It's impossible not to LOVE this town.
Friday and Saturday were all about hiking! The weather was perfect: 75 degrees, sunny, no humidity, and a gentle breeze blowing. On Friday we headed up to Winnemucca Lake and Round Top Lake... about 7 miles roundtrip.
Along the hike... we got some pretty good views of Caples Lake... where we paddled on July 4th weekend (see previous blog).
The scenery was BEAUTIFUL along the entire hike. The wildflowers are in peak season.
When we reached Lake Winnemucca, Mike and Z decided to take a little swim in the pristine (and FREEZING COLD) water. I attempted to walk in, but after only a minute or two my legs were cramping up. It's pretty high in elevation and there is still snow all around so you can probably imagine how cold this water is.
After another mile of hiking, we reached Round Top Lake where we stopped for a little snack before heading back down.
Lake Winnemucca from higher elevation:
On our hike back to the car, we took a little detour to see Frog Lake. There are so many flippin' lakes around here! We could live here forever and never see them all.
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| Frog Lake with Elephant's Back in the background. |
Saturday we headed back to the same area, to follow part of the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT). We did a short through hike, meaning we parked one car and the finish and rode together to the starting trailhead. This was one of my MOST favorite hike so far! The trail wasn't crowded at all... in fact we only passed a few other people on the 8.5 mile hike. The trail cut through meadows and wooded areas... there were TONS of wildflowers... lots of waterfalls and streams to cross... it was amazing.
The Meiss family moved here from Germany in the 1800's and built this summer cabin along the Truckee river.
Halfway through the hike we arrived at Round Lake... where we had a picnic lunch and took a little siesta in our hammocks before hitting the trail again...
After Round Lake we crossed through Big Meadow, which is a BIG. MEADOW.
Zater had LOTS of swimming holes to cool off and rehydrate.
Now that we've done a short stretch of the Tahoe Rim Trail... we want to do more! It's a 165 mile trail around Lake Tahoe. Some people hike the entire thing straight through which takes about 2 weeks. We will hopefully just be doing short stretches at a time and hopefully one day we can say we've done the entire thing. So stay tuned for more adventures from the Tahoe Rim Trail.
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