Sierra Nevada

I had a romantic visions of what Lake Tahoe would be like – crystal clear emerald green lake, surrounded by dense spruce forest and sparsely developed with a few lake houses with jetties on which one could lol about for a quite time of contemplation of the wonders of the natural world. Arriving in Lake Tahoe quickly shattered all such illusions. The Lake is certainly crystal clear, its shore is largely developed and the lake is enormous. I did not fully appreciate how big the Lake is and how much of the shoreline has restricted access. Huge houses and mansions fringe the eastern shore, high-rise casinos and urban development fringe the southern shore. But when you do get close to the Lake it is jaw dropping beautiful.

We chose to stay to the north of Lake Tahoe on Prosser Hill within the Tahoe National Forest.

The weather has certainly warmed up, hitting close to 30 degrees during the daytime while the nigh time temperatures have plunge to what I would consider freezing. Early morning frost on the ground and mist shrouds the Prosser Reservoir near which we were camped.

We spent one day circumnavigating the lake in our Ford Focus and the next day we walked 0.2% of the 2640 mile Pacific Crest Trail over Donner Pass. The PCT covers the spine of the Pacific mountain ranges across western US, stretching between Mexico and Canada. Now there is only 99.8 % of it still to do!