Monday, November 20, 2023

Road Trip Day 5 to Tahoe

Our plan was to camp at one of the many campgrounds and go for one of the many hikes around Lake Tahoe. On the way we had lunch at the Moody Bistro in Truckee. Truckee reminded me of Banff, only bigger. Our plan didn't work too well. Almost all of the campgrounds were closed for the winter. We found one that was open for "winter" camping (which seemed odd considering it was +20c) but we assumed there would be more and passed it by. The hike we picked also failed because the parking was full to overflowing and people were parked on the highway. We managed to find a less busy trailhead and fit in a short hike. We thought the Lake Tahoe town campsite would be open for sure, but it was closed too. By now it was getting dark and we had nowhere to stay. We found (thanks to Google maps) a small dispersed camping area just south of Tahoe and luckily got a spot there (it filled up shortly after we arrived). Usually travelling off season means it's less busy, but that didn't seem to be the case here. We knew Lake Tahoe was a busy area, but it was preferable to the alternate route through Reno.

Not many photos from this day. We thought this was another cloudscape but later signs indicated it was probably smoke from controlled burns.

fog / smoke

On our hike we spotted a few birds - a mountain chickadee and a Stellar's Jay

Mountain Chickadee

Stellar's Jay

See also Shelley's post

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:18 PM

    Perhaps things are busy because it's U.S. Thanksgiving this Thursday?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, that's definitely a factor this week, although it was busy before as well.

    ReplyDelete