Advertisement
Published: August 23rd 2006
Aug 19 - 20 2006
This is a trip well worth waiting for. Wanting to parasail was one of the prime reasons to even make this trip.
We had to wait 1 month to get camping reservations into Emerald Bay State Park. As I said earlier, well worth it! One of the best places to camp. We could peek into Lake Tahoe from our site :-)
We could not leave until 7.30 am on Sat, Aug 19th. With a late breakfast in Folsom, our first stop was Angora Lakes. The road opens up only in summer. As a result, there was a huge crowd. Finding a parking lot seemed difficult. A short .5 mile hike took us to the upper lake. There was a resort there adding to the crowd. Everyone seemed to rent a kayak or a boat. The place was a blast. From the overlook up above we could see Fallen leaf lake as well. The place was filled with Aspen trees. That is one huge motivation to come back in the fall, for sure.
We headed to our campsite to set up our tent & have lunch. Followed the much heard about and famous Eagle
A small falls along the trail
The hike goes along this trailfalls & Lake. Luckily we found a free parking in the picnic area. We had to sign up for a wilderness permit as we were going as far as the lake. We saw Upper Eagle falls in just about 5 minutes into the trail. The sun was going down and climbing up into the mountains gave dramatic sunset views of Lake(Tahoe) behind. The trail climbed up right from the start, so by now, we got used to the altitude(should be a good 7200 ft ). It is a moderately strenuous 1 mile hike to Eagle Lake. Surprisingly, we had the lake to ourselves for about 20 minutes before another family came in. We came down, crossed hwy 89 and took the short trail down to Lower Eagle falls. It was breath-taking. So much beauty! Although it was just below the highway, it can be easily missed unless you know where you are going. It was almost dark by then and we had to head back to our site.
Parasailing was not as inexpensive as I had thought earlier. But there were brochures all over town for discount deals. Earlier that day, we picked one such deal in South
From upper Eagle Falls
This place should look a lot different in Springtime with higher snow-melt. Lake Tahoe’s McD’s. $50 was definitely a good deal, but it came with a catch. Sunday morning 8:00 am ride.
The Ranger told us that the temperature goes down to a good 40 F at nights. I was a little concerned about a sleepless night. But nothing like that happened. It was very pleasant.
We got up early around 5:30 am; Ganesh wanted to get another shot at lower Eagle falls. With the Sun just coming up, it was an amazing way to start the day. Million thanks to Ganesh for giving me such a day.
We were getting late for the parasail ride. We had a good 30 minutes drive to Timber cove Marina near the state line. It was much colder this side of the Lake. Just didn’t know why. It was getting worse and we(of all people in the world) were pretty much looking for Sun.
At some point, I remember we did not want to take the 1200 ft ride. Maybe I should have settled for an 800 ft. :-( But the person-at-the-desk told us not to worry. It might not be that cold, after all.
The boat had its max limit
Parasailing Lake Tahoe
Take off: Morning 8.30 am Aug 20 2006 of 6 people. With 2 kids going for 1200, it would be a shame if we downgraded to an 800. :-)
I was getting a little nervous when I first saw the parachute. It was huge! But after seeing the first person go up, it was real cool. Everything looked so smooth. We were the last to go. As I was under-weight(<125 lbs), me and Ganesh had to go together. Our Captain, Brad was nice enough to take some pictures and explain how things worked there. The water was so cold that no one wanted to get wet.
Our turn finally came. I had my video camera with me. It was a nice experience. For anyone who wants to go parasailing, but scared of the 1200 ft- don’t worry. Its not 1200 vertical ft; its 1200 ft length-wise(approx 850 vertical ft).
It was a nice experience, but not as thrilling as I had done skydiving earlier. Ganesh seemed to enjoy it though. He was all smiles. 10 minutes seemed to fly away. Soon enough, we were getting down and on our way back home.
After a filling subway breakfast, we checked out and got ready for the
Parasailing Lake Tahoe
1200 ft from the boat, 850 ft above the lake... Rubicon trail(Ganesh really wanted to do this all the way up to Rubicon Point- 6.6 miles away). We thought we would take the shuttle back. But that would add a good 2.5 miles. We were a little unsure about all of that. Finally, we reached the trail head and started on our descent. There was no way I would consider that to be a trail. Uh-huh. It just went down vertically. A few people followed us too. We were almost at the bottom when we realized that we were on the wrong trail. We climbed up all the way to find out the correct trail head near the campfire center. We were too tired to go any further. So, we sat and thought. We came to a combined compromised decision on going until Emerald Bay and then turning back. The trail was very easy with a very gradual grade. We got peeks of the beautiful waters of Emerald bay all along the trail. We probably reached down in 40 minutes. The bay was beautiful. Looked like all the people in Lake Tahoe were there, only in boats. It was real fun to see all that.
It started getting real
Hike to Eagle Lake
we had to get a wilderness permit hot by then. We still had a small hike left over-Horsetail falls on Pyramid creek.
It was some 15 miles from south Lake Tahoe near Camp Sacramento.
Pyramid Creek picnic area was so crowded with backpackers. We met some hikers who hiked up to the top of the falls(well! They started at 10.45 am and it was around 6 pm when we met them; figure out :-) )
But the book we had(CA waterfalls) was deceptive. We could only see the horsetail falls from far. It looked a good 1 difficult mile inland. But we saw a small cascade nearby. So, we went there and spent some time near the ice cold waters. It still had a lot of water.
We had a relaxing hike back to the car.
Tahoe has a lot more to offer than we often make use of. The place so much reminded me of Yosemite. They are all the Sierras after all.
With this thought, and a dramatic sunset neat Placerville, we came back home in time to get some
sleep. ( in spite of a major traffic congestion in 205 and I580)
This weekend was gone in a flash. So
much we saw.
Well! As always, I got to be below the stars. And, I could see and identify milky way.
Overwhelmed!!!
I don’t know whom to thank for all of that. Nature might be a good place to start, I guess.
:-)
Travelbuffs.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.284s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 23; qc: 123; dbt: 0.1436s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
T
non-member comment
Good one!!