Fun Fun Fun
On Friday evening I took my son Jadon on a fun hike to Shealor Lake, near Silver Lake. He had asked me earlier in the week if he could go on a hike with me, and I immediately said “absolutely”! He usually does not want to go hiking with me, so I was surprised he wanted to this week, and definitely pleased that he did, but where would be a good place to go? I thought Shealor Lake would be a good option, as it was not overly difficult, and also there is (supposedly) a couple waterfalls there as well. The hike was really really good. There was a nice stiff breeze keeping us on the cool side (though it was 100 degrees in Sacramento), the hike was gorgeous with great views, and the lake itself is very pretty. The waterfall was completely dry however. I was not expecting much, but I thought it would be flowing a little bit at least. I definitely will be returning here next spring. Well we took pictures of the lake then headed back up the hill to our car. I thought we could go on one more little hike to Granite Lake Falls, which I thought might be flowing a bit better. Only barely. That waterfall was just a trickle, not even worth a picture. So all in all, I had a great evening with my son, and a great hike to a beautiful lake, but no waterfalls.
On Saturday, we were not planning to do anything, but when my wife woke up (at 11AM!), she came up with an idea. Let’s all go to Lake Tahoe for the day! Great idea. So after eating lunch at home, we headed up the hill. First off, we went on a short hike to Upper Glen Alpine Falls. It was quite a hot day, even up in the mountains. Gee whiz, I thought we were going to Tahoe to escape the heat! We arrived at the waterfall, which was flowing ok. I like Upper Glen Alpine Falls a lot because it does not need a lot of water in the creek to look nice. There was indeed not a lot of water flowing in the creek, and it was easy to rock hop across to the other side. I’ve never been able to do that before. We relaxed in the shade on the rocks along with another couple that was already there and took some pictures. Then I decided to do something only slightly crazy with my kids. Take a shower under the waterfall! It was actually quite fun, and quite cold. My kids did it also and had a blast. Tara decided to stay dry and miss the fun, but she did take photos of us crazies. After this we went to the beach at Fallen Leaf Lake, where the kids had fun swimming in the lake, and jumping off a big rock that was in the lake. Finally, after dinner, we went over to Eagle Falls for sunset. Even late in the day, there seemed to be a large amount of people at the falls. There were no clouds so I just took photos of the waterfall, which also is on its last legs for the summer, but I scrambled down the cliff to the bottom of the first tier. It was steep and a bit sketchy in places, but I made it down safely, then crossed the creek to take photos. There seemed to be a constant stream of people at the top of the falls, looking over the edge, and taking pictures; waiting patiently … not my favorite thing to do, but thankfully there were no mosquitoes. I went back up on the other (south) side of the creek, which seemed to be much easier (and safer). Fun fun fun at Lake Tahoe with the family on a hot hot day.