guide describes the top trails of the Lake Tahoe region. Each trail has been chosen because it offers one or more features that make it interesting. Using the trail descriptors, summaries, and tables, you can quickly examine all the trails to find out what features they offer, or seek a particular feature among the list of trails.
Best Time
Time of year and current conditions can be important factors in selecting the best trail. For example, an exposed grassland trail may be a riot of color in early spring but an oven-baked taste of hell in midsummer. Other trails may be cool and shady all year. Where relevant, Top Trails identifies the best and worst conditions for the trails you plan to hike.
Difficulty
Each trail has an overall difficulty rating on a scale of 1–5, which takes into consideration length, elevation change, exposure, trail quality, and more to create one (admittedly subjective) rating.
The difficulty ratings assume that you are an able-bodied adult in reasonably good shape using the trail for hiking. The ratings also assume normal weather conditions—clear and dry.
Readers should make an honest assessment of their own abilities and adjust time estimates accordingly. Also, rain, snow, heat, mud, and poor visibility can all affect the pace on even the easiest of trails.
Vertical Feet
When gauging the difficulty of a trail, hikers and bikers often underestimate elevation change. Vertical feet accounts for all elevation change, not simply the difference between the highest and lowest points, so that rolling terrain with lots of up and down will be identifiable.
For routes that begin and end at the same spot—that is, a loop or out-and-back—the vertical gain exactly matches the vertical descent. With a point-to-point route, the vertical gain and loss will most likely differ, and both figures are provided in the text.
The more strenuous routes have an elevation profile, an easy means for visualizing the topography of a route. These profiles graphically depict the elevation throughout the length of the trail.
Top Trails Difficulty Ratings
1 A short trail, generally level, that can be completed in 1 hour or less.
2 A route of 1–3 miles, with some up and down, that can be completed in 1–2 hours.
3 A longer route, up to 5 miles, with uphill and/or downhill sections.
4 A long or steep route, perhaps more than 5 miles or climbs of more than 1,000 vertical feet.
5 The most severe, both long and steep, more than 5 miles long with climbs of more than 1,000 vertical feet.
Surface Type
Each trail entry provides information about the surface of the trail. This is useful in determining what type of footwear or bicycle is appropriate. Surface type should also be considered when checking the weather—on a rainy day a dirt surface can be a muddy slog; an asphalt surface might be a better choice (though asphalt can be slick when wet).
View south toward Freel and Jobs Peaks (Trail 49)
Introduction to Lake Tahoe
Tall mountains covered with a thick blanket of conifers surround the breathtakingly blue lake, creating a stunning, alplike setting, which is famous around the globe. Whether you plumb the depths of Lake Tahoe, climb to the summit of the highest peak, or journey somewhere in-between, the Tahoe Basin provides many opportunities to appreciate the grandeur of one of the West’s most priceless treasures.
Geography and Topography
The Lake Tahoe Basin presents diverse topography that receives adoration from a devoted tourist base. At an elevation of 6,229 feet, Tahoe is the highest lake of its size in the United States and, with a depth of 1,645 feet (measured near Crystal Bay), is the third deepest lake in North America and the 10th deepest lake in the world. The 22-mile-long and 12-mile-wide lake has a 71-mile-long shoreline, with 42 of those scenic miles belonging to California and the remaining 29 owned by Nevada. Lake Tahoe is perhaps best known for the crystal clarity of its waters, which allows visibility of up to 75 feet below the surface. Sixty-three streams flow into Lake Tahoe, but only one, the Truckee River, flows out of the lake, reaching its terminus in the Great Basin, at Pyramid Lake.
Geologists speculate that the landform that would ultimately become the Tahoe Basin we know today was once beneath a shallow ancient sea in the supercontinent of Pangaea. The North American Continental Plate eventually broke away from Pangaea and headed west, colliding into the Pacific Ocean Plate, which was drifting east. Extreme pressure and heat were created as the North American Plate rose above the Pacific Plate, producing molten rock that slowly solidified beneath the sedimentary surface into granitic rocks, which were later exposed through faulting.
Faulting fractures in the earth’s crust allowed blocks of land to rise and fall, pushing the primarily plutonic rocks of the Sierra Nevada up from the ancient seabed. Two principal faults evolved in the Tahoe area, which produced uplifts that became the main Sierra Crest to the west and the Carson Range to the east. In between, the down-thrown fault block formed the deep V-shaped valley of the Tahoe Basin.
A lake began to form at the lowest, southern end of the basin, fed by precipitation and creeks draining the surrounding mountains. The level of the lake rose steadily, until an outlet for the river draining the lake was reached to the north, near the current town of Truckee. Later, a significant lava flow from Mount Pluto, site of the Northstar California Resort, dammed the outlet and caused the lake to rise again. Eventually the river was able to cut a new outlet through the volcanic rock, near the present-day Tahoe City. The highest level Lake Tahoe ever reached was an estimated 600 to 800 feet above the current level. Additional volcanic activity occurred at both the south end of the basin, around Carson Pass, and the north end of the basin, near Donner Pass.
Though a regional ice sheet was absent, in theory the last ice age put the finishing touches on the Tahoe Basin. Separate rivers of ice followed some of the existing V-shaped stream channels, carving them into classic U-shaped canyons. Glacial action scoured several of the canyons on the west side of the basin, uncovering the classic granite bedrock associated with the Sierra Nevada today. In the process, some of the area’s most picturesque lakes were formed, including Donner, Cascade, Fallen Leaf, and Echo Lakes, as well as scenic Emerald Bay on Tahoe’s southwest shore. Because the Sierra Crest creates a rain shadow effect, which limits the amount of precipitation, minimal glaciation occurred from the Carson Range to the east. Without the glacial scouring on the west side of the Tahoe Basin, the topography of the Carson Range is primarily volcanic soils rather than the classic Sierra granite bedrock. While the west side of the Tahoe Basin is sprinkled with an abundance of tarns, lakes, and ponds, the east side is nearly devoid of such features. Additional glacial activity influenced the area when ice dams formed across the Truckee River canyon and broke several times, producing floods that further shaped the canyon, depositing debris downstream as far away as present-day Reno.
Flora
Because the area ranges in elevation from 6,229 feet at lake level to 10,881 feet at the summit of Freel Peak,
