Darlene and I headed into Desolation Wilderness from the Meeks Bay trailhead on Lake Tahoe this Monday for three days, two nights of backpacking. This turned out to be a pretty easy going climb and less than five miles to the first lake (Genevieve) and a few more miles to where we camped at Stony Ridge Lake for both nights.
On our layover day, we continued on up to Rubicon Lake and then set off cross-country to reach the saddle to the southeast in hopes of a nice view overlooking Emerald Bay. Unfortunately, thunderclouds started coming in and we had to bail out before we could get to the overlook. On our way back down, we were caught in a surprisingly heavy hail storm and then had to dash down off the heights in the rain as the thunder and lightning approached. We returned to camp pretty soaked and moved everything a few hundred feet to a better location to wait out the storm. Happily the rain let up before the sun set for the day.
Bunches of pictures from a week in Tahoe with Darlene: hiking with Glenn and Michele along the old railroad bed from Donner Summit and through some of the tunnels, mountain biking with Mike up to the fire lookout at Martis Peak, kayaking from Sand Harbor to Secret Cove on the east shore of the lake, riding the Truckee River trail to Squaw Valley, watching the fireworks from the water’s edge at Kings Beach and, posted separately, soaring over Tahoe in a glider and saving the world from total ruin in Pandemic Legacy.
For my birthday, Darlene bought me a glider ride with the Truckee Tahoe Soaring Association based out of the Truckee airport and we were able to squeeze in together for a 40-minute flight over the mountains between Truckee and Lake Tahoe. It was, of course, a wonderful experience and we got to learn a bit from our pilot Pablo about the capabilities of gliders – like the ability for them to sustain 1000-mile flights up and down the Sierra Nevada range, riding the thermals. Both Darlene and I did get a little motion sick (no doubt partly due to trying to take pictures and video) but not too serious. It was a little noisier in the cockpit than I expected from all of the air rushing over and around the canopy but we were easily able to talk to each other.
While we were aloft we were joined by two other gliders coming in from more distant locations. One of them was just coming across Lake Tahoe fairly low from the direction of Carson City and we watched as they searched out some thermals to get themselves back up again to a more comfortable 11,000 ft elevation over the 8000+ ft mountain ridges around the lake.
Darlene and I got a little taste of the Tahoe Rim Trail exploring west from the Tahoe house as far as Burton Creek State Park this past weekend. I was surprised to find that there’s also a paved road that runs from Brockway Summit around to Burton Creek State Park, called the “Fiberboard Freeway” on some maps and apparently popular as a cross-country ski route. We also wandered into the cross-country ski area that’s part of Northstar that I’d never seen before – including the “Caboose Hut”.
This little road trip to the Eastern Sierra got off to a rough start as I experienced a breakdown in the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle far from any service help. I was on US-395 just past the intersection with CA-108 (still closed from snow on Sonora Pass) when I suddenly felt multiple and ongoing jerking motions from the transmission as it seemingly tried to jump between gears. I was luckily right in front of a pullout (which are few and far between) and was able to pull off the highway and try to figure out what was going on. I ended up waiting about four hours as Mercedes roadside service tried to find a tow service before I found I could get the vehicle moving and head back towards Gardnerville and eventually Reno to get the vehicle looked at the next day. (For more play by play on what happened, see this thread in the Sprinter-Source forum.) Anyway, after losing a couple of days to dealing with that and then another day back at the Tahoe house fixing the RV’s refrigerator (which had also started acting up), I eventually headed out again.
I was going to meet up with Hoan and his family in Mammoth Lakes but they ended up bailing out and so I spent a few days in and around the Mono Lake basin. The first night was a little off road on the way up to Virginia Lakes after discovering the dirt roads any higher were still blocked with snow. Still it was looking to be a lovely high altitude spot for star gazing with my telescope – until after setting everything up I realized I had forgot to pack my counterweight – making it mostly unusable. D’oh! Still it was a nice spot to fly the drone around a bit with Mono Lake visible in the distance. And Pan caught himself a mouse. ;-)
The following day I dropped down into the Mono Basin and went off roading a bit to get near the Mono Craters to go exploring on foot and in the air. (I wasn’t going to try take the Traveling Cat Adventure Vehicle up the slopes of the craters!) My cross-country hike turned out to be much more difficult than expected as it was really tough just getting up a step or two without slipping back on the steep scree slopes. But my, such a lovely and fascinating view over the top by flying the drone!
The last day involved some more exploring and flying near Grant Lake – and I found myself pushing the vehicle climbing on some just barely passable rough dirt roads. Once again, I’m really looking forward to downsizing to a much smaller and more capable off-road van. After getting out of there without mishap, the return trip involved backtracking north on 395 to highway 88, Monitor Pass and Markleeville. Tioga Pass was still closed and Sonora Pass and Ebetts Pass would be a really bad idea for a 25 ft. RV! Carson Pass was lovely and snow capped all over on the way back though.
As I detailed earlier (Those Ice Dam Blues), the Tahoe house developed thick ice dams all around to the point where I was getting water intrusion where the dormers meet the roof above the deck. Turning the poorly-installed heat tape/cables back on, and leaving them on 24/7, let the melt water drain off (and re-freeze into a thick layer on the deck). I called around and found Millers Roofing would be able to come out and clear the snow and ice from the roof about a week later. (Boy would that suck if the heat tape hadn’t been able to get the water to drain.)
Well… it would seem that I had some entirely unfounded expectations over what to expect. I was thinking that a service to clear the snow and ice from the roof would leave the roof relatively clear of both (at least until the next snow storm). Though I had no idea how they would safely remove the foot-plus thick ice, I was surprised to discover that they apparently don’t actually remove all of the snow or apparently any of the ice. Six hours of work for three guys (and $2250) and what they do is remove about three-quarters of the snow off the top. Troy sent me a photo of the front of the house two days after the roof snow removal crew finished (and after another storm dropped some more snow). Here’s the before/after shots:
One week before and two days after the clearing work
When I did get to the house about ten days later, I was dismayed to see that while a lot of snow was dumped off the roof, the ice dams remain everywhere around the house except for where the heat tape/cables run beneath the dormers:
And there’s quite the load of snow and ice from the roof on the deck now:
The concern here is how the melt water from the roof continues to fall and refreeze into a slab of ice on the deck – getting up to the door thresholds. We are starting to get a little bit warmer weather so we’ll see how this goes in the coming months but this clearly needs some work to avoid this mess in the future – both the ice dam formation and the ice slab on the deck.
All of this makes me wonder if it was worth hiring that crew to do that partial snow load removal. I can see some more shingles are peeling off the roof eaves but maybe it would be worse. On the other hand, the ice dams remain until they eventually melt away and there’s plenty of snow remaining (and to come) to feed them. Hopefully there won’t be any water intrusion elsewhere on the roof where there are no heat cables installed.
Darlene’s brother John, his wife Sandy, and daughters Joslyn and Carlyn came out to visit in Tahoe for a week. We were able to finish up our road trip to join them for some activities including hiking, kayaking and climbing in the trees at the treetop adventure park in Tahoe Vista.
This activity list is intended for those who might not be very familiar with the Lake Tahoe area, but staying at our house in Tahoe Vista, on the north side of the lake. The whole lake is a big tourist destination year round but the north side is less built up than the south side. There’s of course lots more info available on the web. Read more “Things to Do Around Lake Tahoe”
