Lake Tahoe

Olympic Valley ❤️🏠📸

We were staying at the Red Wolf Lodge at Olympic valley. The Village is a little spot with stores, restaurants,bars as well as entertainment. They occasionally do have live music happening and shows. We were lucky enough to learn about a new blues group called Rick Estrin and the Night Cats. Obviously not new, but new to us. High on the blues top 100 billboard, so make sure to check out the entertainment there, there is the possibility of discovering a diamond.

Truckee River Bike Trail ❤️🏠📸⭐

This bike friendly trail will take you to Tahoe. You can also walk. This is a beautiful fairly level bike trail along the Truckee River. We didn’t walk to Tahoe, but we walked a couple miles along the river which is very relaxing and beautiful. Bikers were on point, not douches like in San Francisco. They have good etiquette, so I wasn’t worried about walking the trail. It’s free and if you have the time and want a nice relaxing walk along an amazing river, this could be for you, or just bike to Tahoe and not worry about parking.

Lake Forest Boat Ramp

I went to the boat ramp here. There was nothing that stood out for me, but you can fly your drone over here, and I found the rules for droning here very confusing.

Kings Beach Miniature Golf ❤️🏠

There are a few courses around the lake, but this was the one we went to. Who doesn’t like miniature golf? I clown golf, but I’ll play miniature golf any day. 15 for a full session, 18 for 2 full sessions, makes it a good deal if you want to play their second set. It was fun and being in the shade during summer is nice, because it was HOT!

Tahoe Meadows Ophir Creek Trail ❤️🏠📸🚗⭐

We came here after eating sushi in Reno. I knew I needed to come back here to shoot the stars. We returned before sunset. This place is a beautiful meadow on 431. A wooden walkway is used to walk the meadow making it very easy hiking, though you can go deep in the forest. There are LOTS of mosquitos here. I mean lots. It was weird, I was murdered by them, but I think I have damage reduction so I am immune. After living in Asia for almost 8 years and living a bit in Central and South America, and traveling a lot, the mosquitos weren’t able to bite me. I mean they did, but no red bumps, no itches. Nothing! I still had mosquito bites from Mexico the week before. I don’t know, but if Lake Tahoe mosquitoes bite you, this could be a tough place because I was bit, like 100 times.

 I couldn’t see stars until like 10 pm in Tahoe. Kind of sucked because it took so long. I didn't start shootin until around 10:30 pm, but I did get the milky way! So worth checking out. Oh, you can also fly drones here. Droning is a bit confusing in Lake Tahoe. Also, beautiful wild flowers here!

Logan Shoals Vista Point ❤️🏠📸🚗

This was on the east shore, and just a quick stop to get a view of the lake. Nice place to stop and take some pictures.

Lam Watah Nature Trail ❤️🏠📸🚗

This trail on the east shore was a trail my folks did a few years back where they saw beavers. I want to see beavers! We didn’t but we did stroll this flat and easy trail, which was quite beautiful. We didn’t hike to the beach, but wandered around a bit, taking photos, and checking out the pond. Nice, easy hike.

Emerald Bay State Park ❤️🏠📸🚗⭐

Probably the nicest bay in the area, Emerald Bay is on the south west corner of the lake. Nearby is the Emerald Bay Vista Point and Eagle Falls TrailHead. Going down into the park is pretty easy and short with a switch back path. At the bottom, aside from the beautiful beach is Vikingsholm, a 1929 mansion with summer tours, and Lower Eagle Falls Bridge, which leads to lower Eagle Falls. 

Fallen Leaf Lake ❤️🏠📸🚗

A bit further south of Emerald Bay is Fallen Leaf Lake. We came here to see Fallen Leaf Chapel. On the first Sunday of July in 1923, this chapel opened its doors. We bypassed the lake and drove down until it was a one way road, and continued until we went slightly past the Fallen Leaf Fire Station. We parked above and walked down, because I didn’t see the chapel. As usual, fire fighters are super cool and helpful and I found that the chapel was right next to the fire station. I’m not religious, but it was a beautiful little church. It was open and there was a small bell tower next to it. 

When I travel, I like to experience different things and places. We could have done trails the whole time, but as much as I hike, I don’t necessarily enjoy it. This was a nice little side stop to see some history and something different. 

If you continue past the  fire station, you will quickly reach Glen Alpine Falls, even by foot. It’s a pretty impressive looking waterfall with pools to wade in above, on and below. There are some homes off to the side. Lovely views of the falls I'm sure. 

A bit further past the falls is Lily Lake. There is a trail which we didn’t do, but it is a beautiful little lake and we spent some time here relaxing. 

Sugar Pine Point State Park ❤️🏠📸🚗⭐

10 bucks to get in. I think all state parks are 10 to get in. This park was nice! It had some beautiful beach areas. One thing about hiking in Tahoe is focusing on colors rather than names of trails. I am always on names. There were no signs for names, but there were colored diamonds on trees showing which trail you were on. I didn’t realize this until later. Focus ONLY on colors. We walked all around this small park, which took us to Ed Z’berg Sugar Pine Point State Park, which is probably the same. These flat, simple trails take you through shore and forest. The shoreline is amazing, crystal clear waters, as a matter of fact if it almost felt like being in the Maldives, the water was that clear. I forgot how beautiful the lake area was. Some notable spots are Hellman-Ehrman mansion, the nature center and gift shop, mainly the nature center for me. Sugar Pine Point Beach is nice, but you can follow trails and hit smaller, more secluded beaches. They said there was a lighthouse here and I thought it literally. It's actually a navigational light. So basically it looks like a road sign with a light. Nothing spectacular. You can hit these trails north until you reach peoples homes at which point you can head west.

It was a bit confusing, as we wanted to do the General Creek Trail, which we did, but you have to cross the highway and enter the General Creek campgrounds, if you’re walking, so it's like a mile of walking within the camp grounds, which was kind of lame. I was going the right way, but I was concerned, so I saw some park rangers mobb’n around and asked for directions. I was on the right path. There are bathrooms around here though.

Eventually you will get off the paved path, hit a left and start the General Creek Trail. You could go further and even hit the Lily Pond, but we decided to take the first turn out since we were walking a lot already.

The first turn out, you cross a bridge, and make sure to explore the creek area by the bridge because there is a beaver dam. You will also be on a segment of tKis trail that was used for these 1960 Olympic events: Men’s 4 X 10K relay, and Men’s 15K Special. Pretty dope. 

The good thing about this trail, while on the map it looks like you have to turn back, and go back the way you came, you actually don’t. It will take you back to the highway, in which you cross the street, go back to Sugar Pine Park, and take a dip in the lake. Personally, I think starting where this trail ends, and returning this way would have been a better way to do the General Creek Trail. I’m not trying to walk through campgrounds. 

Donner Tunnels ❤️🏠📸🚗⭐

This to me was the icing on the cake and a random find. I was scrolling through my Facebook, when I saw some pictures on a hiking page. I saw caves and Graffiti. The title was Donner Tunnels. I was like, “wait! Donner Lake isn’t far from here, maybe this is close.” Punched in the coordinates, and BAM, there it was! A 30 minute drive. We had to go there. OK, I read a lot of comments on this place and heard people argue that the graffiti is disrespectful to all the Chinese and other workers who built these tunnels. 

Theodore Judah was the vision behind these tunnels. He wanted to build a railroad through the central pacific through the Sierra Nevada mountains. The tunnels were built by Chinese Laborers and took more than 15 months to finish. They used hand drilling, black powder, and nitroglycerin which led to countless worker deaths. It was completed in August 1867, and the first train passed through it in 1868.

I knew about the Donner Party and what happened there. I never heard of the Donner Tunnels, but if it wasn’t for the graffiti I wouldn’t have gone here.

Here are some comments I read about it “There are mixed reviews about the graffiti ... personally, it violates any and all aspects of the 7 principles of LNT. I found it distracting and ugly. Yeah, there were a few "well done" displays of "art" but overall, visual litter does not belong in the mountains (anywhere!)”

“Fun, easy trail. Interesting Tunnels and tunnel tech. Great views. Graffiti was a negative . Overall, very nice hike.”

“Dark, wet railroad tunnels covered in graffiti? Why would you care in a place like this?”

“What's with all the graffiti? Bad, not for kids, really distasteful. Sad when history is trashed.”

I won’t lie, I went for the graffiti. I didn’t care about the history until I got there. Most people don’t understand the rules of the graff game, but graff artists' dreams are abandoned man made locations to tag, throw up, and make pieces. These tunnels are the perfect place. These are usually easy places to create big productions without the police fucking with you. 

Sure, there was bad graff there, but most of these people who comment don’t know anything about the artistry of graff. So I don’t value their opinions. A “one flow” might look like shit to you, but the style of never taking your instrument off the canvas to create a one flow requires some skill. Thats just one example. With that said, I totally see where people are coming from. I can see how people would find this distasteful and disrespectful.

I don’t think the graff took anything away from the history or tunnels. As a matter of fact, because of it I decided to learn about the history, THANKS to the graff. This type of graff is part of our era. It now contains multiple histories from multiple eras, and to me enhances the experience. 

Anyways….free parking. Parking was spacious, and a few meters from the entrance. We came on a weekday and there were people. It wasn’t packed but there were people here. I expected it to be off the beaten path, but nope. That was my major disappointment. The deeper you go, the less people there are. We walked through all the tunnels until we came to an outside path. Walked a bit, but never saw another tunnel. We headed back. 

There was one tunnel that had a mild smell of piss, the rest of the tunnels were fine. You don’t need high powered lights, but there are a couple tunnels you could get in an accident without lights, so make sure you have at least your phone. 

Overall this was a very flat, easy, unique hiking experience that I would highly recommend, unless you find graff insulting, in which case I see you more as the problem than the graff itself, and great as one less person in an area that can get crowded.

China Wall ❤️🏠📸🚗

Below the tunnels is the China wall, which you can see from below. You can park alongside the road and see it here.

Overall there is sooo much to do here, depending how much paper you have. If I had money, I would have paid 70 dollars to rent a raft and do the 5 mile as long as you want stroll down the Truckee River, I would have scuba dived this lake for wrecks and the visibility is apparently like my trip to the Red Sea…SUPER CLEAR! I would have eaten out a lot more instead of cooking at the hotel, but we did have a grill outdoors, so food was nice! I would have rented a boat or kayak and mobb’ed around the lake. I probably would have hit some casinos to gamble or check out more live entertainment. 

But you can do what we did, everything on a budget, most things free, and still have an awesome time!

Lupita’s Mexican Restaurant

We did eat at Lupitas Mexican Restaurant in Incline Village on the north shore. There was parking out front. Prices were nice! Portions were of average size. I got the taco, enchilada, beans and rice for I think 11.99 which was pretty damn cheap. When we walked in we say lots of Mexicans (I say Mexicans because of the way they spoke Spanish, I guess some could have been from other Latin American countries.) This is always a good sign for Mexican food. It was legit. 

We also hit Reno. Damn, Reno is kind of like a desert Oasis. We didn’t explore it, but what we saw was pretty nice and green! We came here for all you can eat Sushi. We decided to go to Kuma Sushi for the 27 dollar all you can eat lunch. It was a super legit place and kind of funny.

First of all, I love fake sushi. What I mean by that is I like specialty rolls, like dragon rolls, 49er rolls, etc…I’ve lived in Asia for almost 8 years. While you can get these types of rolls, they are not popular, and any real Japanese person would clown these rolls. I DON’T CARE! I respect their choices, but I ain’t eating a slab of rice with a shrimp on top. I like the creativity of speciality rolls and always will. 

Landlocked Sushi joints can be a little scary. I have eaten all you can eat sushi twice in Las Vegas, and once in Layton, Utah. I do all you can eat, because I can eat a shit ton of sushi. If I were to pay for individual rolls, it would amount to over 100 usd. Anyways, after all these joints, while I enjoyed them, they gave me the shits afterwards.

Kuma

Kuma sushi was the first all you can eat joint that didn’t bother my stomach or bowels. SUPER CRUCIAL! Not only that, but they didn’t fill the rolls with rice like they did in Layton, Utah. Shit, I ate like 4 rolls with my dad and we were done. I had to take the rest home because it was so filling. At Kuma they don’t make rolls thick with rice so you can try lots of different rolls and keep going! This was crucial! We never felt rushed, the staff was great. And this is where it gets funny. The owner is Korean, the staff were all Mexican. But the staff were all related, cousins and family from the same place in Mexico. Only in the USA, which makes it even more pimpy. You might think,  “I don’t want Mexicans making my sushi. Which is valid. I get it. I don’t want a white dude making my Mexican, but Mexicans are in every restaurant in California. They are learning hella food game out here, so I don’t mind seeing a Mexican make my sushi in California, because they are soaking game. If the Japanese can sing and perform Mariachi, and copy Chicano culture, Mexicans can make sushi.