TRT/Big Meadow

First MTB trip in Tahoe

For this beautiful weekend in August, Russ and I went back to South Lake Tahoe for the first time since our wedding three years ago. This time, we brought along a few mountain bikers who rode with us on this beautiful section of the Tahoe Rim Trail, starting from Big Meadow.

After the initial climb, you can see where Big Meadow got its name :-)

As we continued to climb, we hit a sign that not only showed us which way we should go to Round Lake, but also how people gave sacrifices to the trail gods. Matt decided this was a good place to mess with his bike, so John assisted him by watching. At this point we continued to climb until we hit this sweet swoopy section of singletrack.

After the swooping, we reached Round Lake. It was a beautiful section, and it had little trails that led directly to the Lake itself.

The lake itself is just beautiful, and before we sat down for lunch, a few of us played around on the trails. And a few of us took pictures of a tree with an "alluring" quality.

Russ and Bill were having a lot of fun with my camera, while the rest of us just munched and chatted. :-)

Then it was time for a group picture-- one with helmets and one without (in case you don't see us with them on and you still want to recognize us), and another shot of Round Lake before heading down to Darnelles Lake.

On our way to Darnelles Lake, we found three creek crossings. Amrit and I were getting a wheel wash, and one of the other creeks was just fun to go through. Russ particularly likes creek crossings, so he was really enjoying this.

After the rest of us got across the creek, the trail got rockier and rockier. Bill made an attempt at this section, and cleaned most of it.

We had another creek crossing before the trail became a hike-a-bike. Bill was determined to show us how to rock. On the way up, we saw a rock that looked like it was cleaved in half by a tree. By the time we finished the hike-a-bike section and it was ridable again, we had reached Darnelles Lake.

On the way up, Russ was saying that the lake needs to have margaritas and mermaids to be worth the hike-a-bike section, then he saw the lake and said: "This will do." :-)

Russ found this cool dragonfly, and he got some interesting shots of us...

...and Bill shot some really nice ones of the lake before we headed off again down to Christmas Valley Trail.

When we crossed the final creek back to the trail junction and reached Christmas Valley Trail, we were really tired and looking forward to a fun downhill. Parts of it were really fun and killer...

... but by the end, the only person taking pictures was Bill (who was taking them of me because I was so slow), and the rest of us was a major walk for those of us not expecting as much rock gardens as we did.

Route Taken: Up TRT/BIg Meadow to Round Lake, out and back to Darnelles Lake, then down through Christmas Valley Trail (which we'll probably skip next time).