Nancy-Girl's Journey: Butt Kicking at 7600’

Mt. Tallac (9735’)

Meet Mount Tallac. We have taken many pictures of this monolith, but none from as near as the one above. Mt. Tallac is a landmark here at Lake Tahoe. It is recognizable, as my mom pointed out, by the cross of snow that it almost constantly wears on its face.

Before we came to Tahoe, I had visions of hiking to the top of Mt. Tallac, b/c, well, my brother did it the last time we were all here, in 2001. Heck, my mother did it when she worked on summer crew here at Zephyr Point when she was in her 30’s (?). I absolutely nailed yesterday’s hike. How hard could it be?

OK, so the Mt. Tallac hike is rated “Strenuous” or “Difficult,” depending on the trail resource you use. Yesterday’s is rated “Moderate,” altho I’d call it “Easy.” It’s nearly 10 miles, out & back, as was yesterday’s, but w/ a 3300’ elevation gain (yesterday had a whopping 375’ gain!). Key word: “elevation.” You start at 6480’ where the air is still thin, even if you’ve been here a couple of days.

So, we decided to try out half of the Mt. Tallac trail, to Floating Island & Cathedral Lakes. Two & one-half miles one way, five miles, round trip. Half of yesterday’s hike. Piece of cake! Two to three hours estimated hiking time. Lovely! Oh yeah, 1200’ elevation gain. But it’s in the Easy Day Hikes book. How hard could that be?

Well, as you gathered from the title of this blog, it was pretty hard. Our 2.5-3 hr hike took us 3:55 (I’m calling it 4 hrs). We hiked one (1!) mile per hour going in. It was up, and it was relentless. It wasn’t as steep as the trail to the mountain after the 2nd lake, but it was pretty darn steep. And we didn’t take into account the sun. The trail was pretty much exposed, & even tho the air temperature may have been mid-70s (f), it was very hot in that thin air. And dry. We were constantly thirsty, yet, oddly enough, our noses kept running.

Hahaha. This is what Rich just said: “That was only five miles & it killed us? Can you put ‘straight up’ in there? In the noon day sun? In the boiling hot noonday sun? Both ways?”

But it was beautiful. Check this out:

Lake Tahoe in the background w/ Fallen Leaf Lake in the foreground

Looking the other way to see Mt. Tallac thru the burnt trees trunks. (Don’t know when the fire was.)

Lake Tahoe from the trail

Rich enjoying the view (Lake Tahoe w/ Fallen Leaf Lake in foreground)

I was so happy to see the boundary of the Desolation Wilderness about 1.5 miles into the hike. That meant that Floating Island Lake was very near!

Ahhh…. Floating Island Lake. Our lunch stop (at 2:30!)

Our shirts drying in the sun. They were soaked under our packs! (Yes, we had spares, but why, if you don’t have to?)

On to Cathedral Lake. As per Mike White in Afoot & Afield Reno-Lake Tahoe, “Although reasonably attractive, the lake fails to exude the reverential awe its appellation would suggest, having received the name from the neaby cliff on Tallac’s southeast ridge.” In other words, it was pretty disappointing, considering the effort it took to visit its shores!

This little guy was very busy! But he was getting none of our food or Gatorade!

On our return, we discovered a wonderful vista which made the extra effort to climb the very steep trail beyond Cathedral Lake to a similar viewpoint unnecessary.