We started off this day early and grabbed an early morning coffee in the small country town of Lee Vining. This was where we stopped at our first site, Mono Lake. This featured a large amount of mineral rock formations that came out of the lake in the forms of columns. This was a unique formation in this part of the world and was evidently cause by lava deposits over long amounts of time.
Our coffee that morning was probably the worst coffee I’ve ever had and also was possibly the most expensive grocery store we went to. We purchased chicken and frozen vegetables from the little market as we determined it may be hard to find another store for miles. Turns out that our original destination, Yosemite National Park has its north inlet route (120) closed due to the remainder of snow that winter. In fact it reopened the next day of all days!
So we decided to change the destination on the fly and head to our later planned destination of Lake Tahoe. After about a two hour drive north we stopped for gas at a great stop which had everything a gas station would have and then we headed into the town of Tahoe. We looked up some of the best hikes in the area and determined that the Emerald Bay Hike would give us the best Tahoe experience for a day. We decided to hike upwards to the top instead of down to the lake. Turned out there is a house castle on an island a few hundred yards from the coastline in this area which is quite mesmerizing to see and to learn how and why it was built. The area we went to on Lake Tahoe was called Emerald Bay State Park.
It was very busy, so busy in fact, we decided to park half a mile before the trailhead on the side of the road to avoid waiting in line. The road itself has a river that runs under it and it creates an enormous waterfall as can be seen in the pictures. There’s a lot of exploration opportunity here. Once we explored a little we decided to head upwards to the top of the trail. It is about a mile and a half trail that ascends almost 1000 feet. Overall a very mild hike, but this definitely featured some of Tahoe’s best natural aspects. The lake itself is gorgeous but from way up above you can get a view that is to die for over the entire lake and mountain range. Once at the top the lake is surrounded in an amphitheater setup of mountains and featured the beginning of the tributary which is the river I mentioned earlier. At the top I decided to climb up a pile of large rocks and on the way down I ended up scraping of my shin pretty bad but fortunately no major damage to my phone. This is the only injury I suffered the whole trip and fortunately it wasn’t too bad.
After hiking all morning we decided to get some lunch at a place called Bert’s Cafe and had an excellent lunch. The next day was going to be a big day so we decided to get to a campsite early to setup and get some rest. We ended up driving through a town called Groveland, California, and camped just out of the town limits. This was a quaint town and features the oldest bar in California with many dollar bills hanging from the roof. The bar was called the Iron Horse Saloon. This was an old Western town with a retro feel. I thought it was unique and worth the visit. We ended up cooking that night on the propane stove and enjoyed some chicken and rice. The campsite self we stayed at was more of a state park but nonetheless a very well-maintained area. It was time to get some rest as the next day was the world famous Yosemite National Park and we needed to have energy for a big day of hiking.
June 28 Expenses
18.54 gas
16.94 food
6.84 snack
3 bottle water
24 lunch in tahoe
17.17 gas
7.32 pens
17.38 grocery
1.33 coke station
24.50 camp fee
18 beers at groveland
Total – 155.02