Leon Turnbull Photography

I am not one who normally likes to climb mountain peaks. Before this past week, I can only think of one mountain I have climbed in the past few years. I will climb up mountains, with or without a trail, with or without cliffs, in order to get to a waterfall. But waterfalls do not exist at the very top of mountains. Right? So what is the point in climbing a mountain? It is too much hard work!

Nonetheless, on July 4, I had a stupendously great idea: climb to the top of Pyramid Peak. At 9983 ft., it is the highest mountain in the Desolation Wilderness, and third highest in the Lake Tahoe area. Along the way, I would stop at a new waterfall that I had not seen before. It was going to be an epic day!

It is not an easy hike to the top of Pyramid Peak. There is no defined trail, and I would be going the long way up. There are three main “routes” to the top (no “trails”). The one I chose was the longest route, 6.1 miles, but also the easiest (supposedly), with the least amount of elevation gain (3300 ft. in total). The main reason I chose this route was because of the waterfall.

I started hiking before sunrise. I wanted to get to that waterfall first, before the sun. It was almost five miles to the falls. I hiked quickly. Thankfully, these five miles are somewhat tame in elevation gain (and this first 5 miles was also on a defined trail). The hard part would come later.

Along the way, I came across a bear. It was the first bear I have seen this year! Considering that I have backpacked in a number of wilderness areas this year, including the bear haven of Yosemite National Park, it is surprising I have not seen any bears yet. Technically, I was not even in the wilderness yet when I saw this one. But I was happy! A great start to my epic day. I got within 20 feet of the bear before either of us saw each other. Then he took off like a scalded cat. I only saw his big brown behind.

I came to the waterfall just a little before the sun. Not really a great waterfall but it was pretty and it was over the minimum 20 ft. high. I took some photos then psyched myself up for the upcoming tough part of the hike. I still had 2000 more feet to climb in about a mile. In case you are wondering, that is a lot!

From Lake Sylvia, there is, supposedly, an obvious notch that you need to climb up to get up on the ridge leading up to Pyramid Peak. It is, supposedly, not very difficult to climb up. I could see the notch. It looked horrifically steep and cliffy! Well, I worked my way over to the bottom of it. I could see a path going up a secondary notch. This must be the correct way. People have obviously gone up here before. The other notch would be far too cliffy. I started up. Before long, however, the path became incredibly steep, crumbly, and dangerous. But this must be the correct way! I hemmed and hawed for a long time, then decided to turn around and go back. It was too steep. A fall here could easily result in broken bones, if nothing worse. So now what? Do I go back home?

Before doing that, I decided to go over to the other notch, although I was sure it would be far worse. However, when I got over to it, I saw a well defined path going up the mountain. This was the proper trail! It was not too steep or dangerous. It was pretty easy (except that you are climbing up a mountain with lots of elevation gain). I got up to the ridge in short order. Now I just to climb up the ridge to the top. There was still 1400 ft. of elevation gain to go, now much less than a mile. It was very slow and took a long time. The last section was a jumble of huge rocks that you needed to climb up. I found it very fascinating, obviously volcanic in origin, but it was not easy to climb up (or down). However, the marmots sure must love all these rocks. There were a lot of them around, especially at the top. I got lots of video of them ( so watch for my upcoming video of this hike).

I was not the first one to the peak. In fact, there were a lot of other people climbing up Pyramid Peak on July 4. No doubt because it was a holiday, this was the reason. I would have liked to have some alone time on the peak for a while. If I had not messed around for 45 minutes trying to climb up that other notch, I would have been the first to the top. Ugh. Oh well. I took my time at the top, had my lunch with the marmots, and of course took some photos. There was a lot of haze from the fires in California (one big fire, anyway). I could see Lake Tahoe, barely, off in the distance through the haze.

A trio of East Indian guys came up while I was eating. It was a bit funny because they totally freaked out when they saw the marmots. They thought they were skunks, or some other dangerous animal. I reassured them that marmots were harmless, but just keep an eye on their food. Ha! After saying that, one of the marmots jumped on one of the guys’ head. Kidding! But seriously, did I ever tell you about the marmot that tried to kill my daughter when she was a baby? A story for another time. (ok, it did not actually try to “kill” her, exactly).

Well, time to go back down the mountain. It was a long 6 miles back to the car. The steep part down to Lake Sylvia I found to be very hard on my knees, but after that it  was a nice gentle downhill. Except that I ran out of water three miles from the car. I had brought 3 liters, but it was all gone. I could have filled up in the creek in an emergency, but decided to just get back to the car as soon as possible, where I had plenty of water waiting for me. I was very tired when I got back to the car. Hopefully, I would sleep well that night, but it would be difficult with all the fireworks going off on our street. I still had to go to work the next day too, but it was an epic day in the Desolation Wilderness.