We drove into South Lake Tahoe in search of a replacement for an axle nut that fell off my bike wheel while it was on the roof. We stopped in at the sierra ski and cycle works to look for the replacement piece, and ended up talking about vans. The guy at the shop was on his 5th 4x4 van and loved ours too. in fact, he gave us the bike part to us at no charge, seeing we were fellow "van people". It was clear that adrianne had mixed feelings about this transaction: the bike part was free... awesome!. On the other hand, she was just called a "van person".... not as awesome.
Next door to the bike shop we got some grub and internet time and headed out around the lake to finally do some climbing. We had scoped out a place called Eagle Lake not too far from the edge of Lake Tahoe with some cool looking climbs. The approach to the base of the climb was straightforward, a mile hike on a trail with many granite stairs, including a bridge over the beautiful eagle creek falls. Arriving at the lake we made our way around to the other side on a lesser-used trail and scrambled over some talus to get to the base of the climb.
The climb was great. It was a little awkward to start out the trip with a type of climb that's different than the climbing we typically do in the LA area: a chimney. To get to the top, I placed my feet on one side of the rock and my back on the other side. Walking my feet up and scooting my back up I was able to gradually make it to the top. Adrianne sailed up the chimney portion and made it to the top. The climb was a little trickier for her, since the chimney gets too wide at the top for her height, so she had to switch to climbing the face of the spire for the last 15 feet.
After the climb, Adrianne spotted some giant dandelions. I haven't seen anyone so excited with an invasive species before.
Further up the lake we stopped to do laundry. Lo and behold, the laundry man had once owned a van that was converted to 4wd by Pathfinder, the same company that modified my van back in the 80s. He loved using his old van for deliving towels in the snow. I was getting the feeling that every small business owner in Tahoe had a story about an off-road van.
We turned off the 80 past truckee to search for dispersed National Forest camping. We came accross a "no camping except in campgrounds" sign, so we played it safe and rolled into a designated camping area. It was dark and we were tired so this worked out.
I'm looking forward to more days like this one on the trip, with great weather, quality rock, and beautiful scenery.
That route looks awesome. I'm loving reading your posts and following your adventure - and truth be told I'm pretty jealous too :) keep updating! Can't wait to see you guys in a few weeks!
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