Journal Entries

Day 3 Today we turned back, as this is an out-and-back trip. To keep things interesting, we decided to take the North Canyon Trail back to Marlette Peak Campground instead of the Tahoe Rim Trail. The North Canyon Trail follows a creek up to Marlette Lake, before turning and heading further up to the campground. The section of trail along the creek was the only area where we encountered significant bugs.

Day 3

Swimming in Marlette Lake was one of the highlights of this trip.

Day 2

While we relax at Spooner Lake picnic area (after some hot hiking and then cooling off in the lake) enjoying the shade and easy access to potable water, @mypictograph does an oil pastel sketch of the woods, while @brienne and myself wild harvest pine nuts from the large Jeffrey Pine cones.

Spooner Lake, our destination at the end of day 2. There was no designated camping area here and it was a state park, so we crossed the highway and stealth camped in the national forest for the evening.

Day 2

Walking from Marlette Lake to Spooner Lake. The views are fabulous but in the lower elevations without the breeze it's very hot.

More views of Lake Tahoe.

Day 2 More snow, more fantastic weather, and more fantastic views.

This camp, considered primitive was quite luxurious by our standards. It had picnic tables, a nice big outhouse, and a water pump (though the pump was broken).

Packs disgorged at camp after a tiring day. The map said we were supposed to have travelled 14 miles. My GPS watch said we did 18 miles. The reality was that it was somewhere in between due to the fits-and-starts we had in the beginning stages where we wandered around trying to figure out where the trail went.