Forty percent chance of thunderstorms for Lake Tahoe. That means there is going to be a thunderstorm. It is just a question of when and where. Would Journey and I get rained upon? I forgot my umbrella. That could be a problem.
When we arrived at the trailhead, there were clouds around but not threatening and it looked pretty nice. There was a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away and it was cool. Off we went. Journey was happy to be on trail again but she was lagging a bit. I’m not sure why she would be tired. I don’t think mom played fetch with her in the morning.
So, the waterfall … When I first heard about this one along the Tahoe Rim Trail, I thought it was right on Ward Creek. That is what was initially conveyed to me. However, upon further research I learned it was not on Ward Creek, but on a tributary. I also found a second waterfall in the area. I hoped to get to both of these today and hopefully they would still be decent. It is late in July now. The first one (the unknown one) is off-trail but on Google Earth it looked like a well defined trail going most of the way to it. I thought it would be quite easy for Journey. NOT! The trail was overgrown and had a lot of brush. Journey does NOT like brush. It was very hard for her. She followed me like a trooper though and she did very awesome. Eventually it got too brushy and I could see that the creek was just a trickle. It would not be worth going up to the waterfall. Instead of going back the same way through all the brush, we cut across Ward Creek and back up to the trail. Finally on a good path again, Journey was happy. And so was I.
The second waterfall is called McCloud Falls. I’m not sure how it got this name. It is 30 ft. high exactly. It would be much nicer in the spring but it was still flowing decent in late July. A very pretty waterfall along the Tahoe Rim Trail. The wind had died down now and the mosquitoes came out but they were not horrible. We took photos and had our dinner here. Then we hiked down (on trail), arriving back at the car at sunset. On the drive home on I-80 we had some rain and there was a heckuva lot of lightning about every 30 seconds, lighting up the sky all the way down the hill. Crazy stuff. It was a very lovely evening at Lake Tahoe.
