Mt. Tallac

3 short (like one minute) Youtube videos on the way up the mountain.
Making the Ridgeline

Greg joining the party and celebrating

Panoramic view from the summit

It's been a LOOOONG time since I've stood on the summit of a High Sierra mountain. Too long.

We're climbing Mt. Whitney in 4 weeks. At 14,400 feet, dealing with the altitude is the toughest part of that trek, so we decided that some high-altitude training was required. Mt. Tallac, at 9700 feet, is the tallest and toughest hike we could find that we could do as a day hike.

3:45 a.m. came really early. Driving to Bev's house I could tell that most of the cars on the road were going home, and the lane markers on the freeway were mostly for reference only. After driving to Tahoe and getting set up we were out on the trail at 8:00 a.m.

Mt Tallac sits on the western shore of Lake Tahoe, straddling the western shore of the Lake Tahoe basin and the Desolation Wilderness. With roughly 3500 feet of climbing in the 4.5 miles to the summit, it's pretty much straight up the entire way. We started off hiking through the alpine forest, in the cool, crisp mountain air that just feels like it refreshes your soul.

Greg and Bev's friend Lora met us at the start and stayed with us up to the point where the trail started getting dicey. Good choice on her part. The girls told each other girl stories and I kind of went the other way with Greg, passing on quite possibly the funniest and most disgusting story ever. I'll leave it at that.

As we climbed higher the views kept improving. From the first glimpse of Fallen Leaf Lake, all the way to the summit, the views just got better. A brief rest at Cathedral Lake gave Greg the opportunity to capture our amazing glutes for all posterity.

Shortly after the rest stop the fun really started. We left the forest canopy for good and entered the high country. The trees thinned out, eventually fading away entirely. The trail took a quite noticeable turn upward, and eventually just disappeared. The snowpack had come down to meet us, and had swallowed up what probably was a trail. Instead we were free scrambling over loose boulders. The hiking poles were useless, so we put them them away and grabbed for hand holds and tried not to slip on the loose rocks. At over 8,000', and attempting to boulder scramble up about a 30 degree slope, we were seriously huffing and puffing. Not knowing if this was even the route to the top made the trek even more, uh, dicey. We saw two guys coming down, and they did confirm that we were on the trail. After quite a long and vigorous struggle we eventually popped out of the Talus field and had made the ridgeline. That's the first two videos above.

From there the trail was much easier to follow. There was still plenty of snow on the ground, and we had to make our way across multiple snow fields. The poles were a big help here.

Finally, one more talus field, fortunately much easier than the first one, and we were at the summit. 9700 feet in the air, with a panoramic 360 degree view, was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. The struggles of the climb were all worthwhile as we sat on the summit enjoying our sandwiches (thanks Bev!).

All in all, the altitude hadn't proven to be much of a factor. Very mild dizziness and a slight headache were all the ill effects anyone suffered. That's very encouraging. Whitney is obviously much higher, but the trail is nowhere near as difficult. So we'll see. But for now, mission accomplished on Mt. Tallac!