Takin’ it Easy in Tahoe

After repairing our broken window in Sacramento, we headed to Lake Tahoe, where we met my parents at the beautiful resort where they were staying by the Heavenly ski resort not far from the lake. Tahoe is a beautiful place, but fresh fruit, veggies, baked brie and homemade cookies were almost a more welcome sight than the lake itself. In other words, we ate enough to more than make up for all the calories we’d burned backpacking and such.

The one activity we did leave the comfort of the resort and homemade food for was biking the famous Flume Trail. The trail was beautiful because it followed a ridge high above Lake Tahoe, allowing beautiful vistas over the lake and technical cliffs to avoid along the way. Ryan was not so jazzed about that last part, but nonetheless, the flume trail (named for the flume installed there to mine silver), was our favorite mountain biking scenery of the trip. You can see a glimpse of what it was like in the video below. (If video does not load, click here).

 

 

The trail took up most of the morning, and so we met my parents for lunch at a little café by the lake. They’d taken our (disgusting) sleeping bags to a laundrymat with large washers and cleaned them for us while we were biking, since they weren’t spoiling us enough already.

We did take a dip into the lake that afternoon, but being that it was labor day weekend, you can imagine how insane the crowds were. We didn’t stay long, just enough to clean the dust off from mountain biking and to say we’d swam in the waves.

That night, mom and dad had quite the surprise planned for us to celebrate our birthdays (a little belatedly). Lake Tahoe has two historic paddleboats, and my parents reserved a dinner cruise for the four of us around the lake on one of them. Ryan and I ate all the prime rib, seafood pasta, caprese salad, and fresh fruit we could muster, plus chocolate cake for dessert. Needless to say, it sure beat backpacking food.

Sunset over the lake was absolutely beautiful, as only Tahoe could make it, and the cruise allowed Ryan to see Emerald Bay, which is considered the most beautiful bay and home to Viking Haus, a historic mansion. Well-fed, well-rested, and well-cleaned, Ryan and I felt quite recovered from the first 40 days of the trip, not to mention seeing the fam was just what I needed. Then it was off to the backcountry in Yosemite, and back to our diet of sausage and oatmeal. Yummmmm….