Still not much snow, but that didn't stop me!

A couple weekends ago I took a mini vacation back to Tahoe.  The main purpose of this trip was to go skiing.  Over Christmas break there was no snow and that’s usually when I get a lot of my skiing in (especially since I was about to move to Kentucky!).  Well, a month and a half later they’ve had a least one storm but the snow was still very, very sad.  It’s quite a bummer when you go visit a town that relies on a good winter (read: lots of snow) and they just haven’t got it.  It’s all anyone can talk about and it just makes everything feel depressing.  Despite all this I was determined to go skiing, I was flying across the country fergodsakes!  I was determined to make the best of my three days there and I’m pretty sure I did.

Day 1: I flew out of KY super early and was in Tahoe by noon.  I went downhill skiing at Squaw Valley because  they have a great program where they will give you a free afternoon lift ticket if you flew in that day, all I had to do was show my boarding pass and I was on the mountain.  Luckily, my mom and one of my closest friends have season passes so I was able to ski the afternoon with them.  Squaw is one of the biggest resorts in the area and there was only one run that had decent snow.  It was still fun and worthwhile get those few hours in.  Just being out there is one of the best parts; these pictures only give you a taste of the beauty.

Day 2: I headed out cross country skiing with my parents, which was a nice afternoon activity.  My dad and I decided to try a trail that didn’t look like it had been groomed lately and ended up having to take a longer trail (an extra 4 kilometers).  Not only that but part of the trail was just dirt and we had to hike “a little bit” (my dad’s words).  It was nice to be out there but it was so obvious the lack of snow.

Dirt patches we had to cross, carrying our skis.

Day 3: Back to the nordic center for more cross country skiing, but this time skating! Met up with the same close friend I downhill skied with on Friday for a nice morning ski.  We basically went as far out as the trails were groomed before we had to turn around.  Luckily, it got us out to this beautiful lookout

Ah silver, such a rewarding view.

Update:  It looks as though Tahoe is getting lots of snow as I post this, I must be good luck, y'all can thank me for that!

The table was set, it must've been fancy...

To recap, we spent a week in Tahoe for a short summer vacation.  Some of the highlights were 2 days spent backpacking, and one day painting preschool equipment.  We also cooked my parents a fancy-ish dinner as a birthday present!

Both of their birthdays happened over the summer and since we hadn't seen them until our recent trip to Tahoe we thought it would be a good time to take advantage and do something nice for them.  Luckily, Rob is a very good cook, and I am very good at telling him what to do.  So we I decided we he should cook this really great dinner for the main course, something including buttercream for dessert, and I had my eye on a few different appetizer recipes.  I also thought it would be nice to have a wine to pair with each course.

For the appetizer I decided to use this recipe for a blue cheese and leek bruschetta.  Rob was skeptical because he has a problem with serving something we've never cooked for ourselves.  But I knew my superior cooking skills would come through, and they did!

mmm...bruschetta

We paired this course with a Sonoma cab from Mutt Lynch Winery, Canis Major.  These were an overall hit, and very simple to make.

For the main course Rob cooked this wonderful Julia Child's recipe again.  He poached sole in a dry white wine and then covered it in a parisienne sauce (not really sure what this is, but it tasted good!).  This was served with a side of asparagus and multicolored carrots.

I was so excited to eat that I almost forgot to take a picture

We paired this course with a dry white wine (that was also used to cook the fish in) that was on sale at Whole Foods (although we'd recommend just using two buck chuck, that's what we did last time).

For dessert we made shortbread and buttercream.  Using the buttercream skills he learned we made the most simple one.  It normally uses Cointreau to give it an orangy flavor, but I wanted to try and use Chambord since I love raspberry and chocolate together.  We compromised and did half with Cointreau and half with Chambord.  For the shortbread we used my grandma's secret recipe (Ok not really secret, I just don't know it, but I'm sure Rob could tell you).  We paired the dessert with a red port from Kaz Winery.  We had made waaaay too much dessert (probably enough for 8 people), luckily we had friends coming into town that night and they finished most of it!

I think my parents really enjoyed it, we really tried to make it a nice atmosphere, too.  It's normal for us just to cook them dinner so actually setting the table and using nice place settings and glassware made a difference.  Eating on my parent's back deck with a great view of Lake Tahoe is a perfect backdrop for a nice summer dinner.

Fancy table

nice view



Beautiful, Beautiful Desolation!

We took a  week long vacation to Lake Tahoe a week ago and did some really awesome stuff, here is part one (and most extensive), our backpacking adventure!

My partner had never been camping in his 26 years alive, so we decided it was time to change that! And we didn't want to do something normal and easy like car camping we wanted to go all out and do some sort of backpacking trip!  Ok, not a big one just one night, and what better place to go then desolation wilderness?

Circled area is Desolation Wilderness (approximately)

 Desolation Wilderness is located near emerald bay (the southwest shore) of Lake Tahoe.  It is a protected area of beautiful wilderness with many alpine lakes and other great sights.  It is necessary to get a permit to spend the night there but they usually aren't very hard to come by.  I had an idea of where I wanted to go from past trips but a lot of it would have to be decided on the fly and I just hoped it would all work out!

First day, we started with a few friends who were just day hiking with us and started the long uphill trek out of emerald bay.  Pretty quickly we were told we were heading in the right direction (see pic)!

It is such a steep hike at the start but the views of Tahoe are amazing!

We then passed our first lake, Granite Lake, and after that, more steep uphill.  But more elevation means more and better views!



Granite lake is closest to us, with Emerald Bay and Tahoe in the background

Another shot without the funny looking people

After that we hiked about 3 more miles to get to the next body of water (a beautiful stream heading out of the Velmas) and say goodbye to our day hiking friends.  We took a short break before they headed back and as soon as we sat down somewhere the mosquitoes attacked, it was really bad. We frantically looked for our super strong bug spray and in the meantime only got bit like 30 times, ugh.

From there we decided to look for a campsite so we headed around Upper Velma to see what we could find.  We got to the end of the trail and heard rushing water, so we decided to go see what it was.  There were all kinds of streams and falls flowing into Upper Velma. Finally, Rob was impressed by our surroundings and decided it was pretty cool out here so, logically, he decided to sit in the flowing streams.

We decided it would be cool if we could find a nearby campsite so we could sleep to the sound of the falls.  We found one about 5 minutes later and ditched our bags, hung our food, and went out to explore!

View from our campsite

We decided to scramble up the falls to see if we could get to Fontanillis Lake. This ended up being very fun and provided us with some really great views.

One of my fav pics!

We the got up to Fontanillis, which was also beautiful, and decided to go dip our feet in since it was warm out.  The lake was straight snowmelt (see pic below) which made it so clear and so cold, obvs.

On our way back we crossed some snow, and the dp (short for domestic partner, I will use this abrev from now on) was so excited!

From there we headed back to basecamp and enjoyed some dinner, we got some good recommendations for dehydrated food from Alpenglow Sports and were very satisfied!

Yum-zo!

Then the dp decided it was bedtime.  Neither one of us slept very well, and we realized, too late that we should've just switched mats and we would've both been happier.  It also rained (we use this term loosely) on us around 4am, we frantically got out to put a tarp over the tent, but by the time we got it secured it had stopped "raining".

Bedtime?

The next morning we had breakfast and headed out.  We decided to take a different route part of the way home that took us by fontanillis and dick's lake.  We saw some great flowers by these lakes and the lakes themselves were very pretty.

On the way out we had to climb over a small ridge before descending back to Tahoe, we decided this was the highest point we reached in our whole adventure (about 8500ft). 

On the hike back down we hit a big patch of snow that covered the trail, and for a while had no path to follow.  Even though the dp thought we'd be lost for good about 2 minutes later we found the trail and all was back to normal.

This was the large patch that had us worried for 90 seconds

It was smooth sailing from there back out.  The whole time we were at Upper Velma we didn't see anyone and it was about a mile or two back towards the trailhead that we ran into our first people.  This is a great reason to love this area. We had a good time and it all seemed to go smoothly (except for the sleeping) but hopefully it means we will be able to go on more adventures like this in the future!

And to finish up this post a few pics with me being fancy and using the self timer on my camera (yeah, I'm super high tech!)