We are patiently waiting for the snow to fall in Tahoe, which it is actually supposed to do today and tomorrow! And we really hope it will because it is pouring buckets here in the Central Valley, which is water all of California desperately needs.
Because momma knew we were going to have a few days where we would have less than ideal weather for traveling long distances to adventure, she got us up early to hit the Donner Sno-Park trail head on Sunday morning.
When we arrived there were only two other cars in the parking lot, which would be normal for a weekday. However, there was trash strewn all over the parking lot and the bathrooms were a holy mess. Momma wouldn’t even let Lolo and I go in with her she was so afraid of us touching something.
The state of the trail head was something that continued onto the trail. There was trash and broken sleds and water bottles, gatorade bottles, beer bottles, you name it – trash everywhere. The crows were out and clearly going through the bins, but this was not all from the birds. We thought maybe maintenance has been on vacation or something. But we weren’t staying near the trail head, and as soon as we were 1/4 of a mile in things were back to normal.
Momma let me pick the trail and I had the intent to take us up the Frog Lake overlook route, but when we got to the tunnels running under the highway they were GUSHING with water. And we’ve had to swim through those tunnels before and momma was definitely not in the mood to spend the entire day all soaking wet.
So she turned us around and took us down the trail that connects to Donner Pass Road. Around Lake Angela – which is actually a reservoir of drinking water and not a lake you can play in (something we were sad to discover on a really hot day last summer) – we turned into the hills because momma wanted us to make a loop.
Now there is no loop trail here, but we have come down to Lake Angela in the snow from the hill that almost touches Boreal, so she knew it could be done. It was just a matter of finding our own way, or as momma says “having an adventure.”
The really only tricky part was finding places to cross big pools of water that we weren’t super certain were really frozen over, since there was plenty of water running in the streams (and earlier on the trail, remember!).
As we were traversing giant granite slabs momma noticed there was a sword stuck into a rock.
She called us over to investigate and sure enough it was just like the story of the sword in the stone!
Neither Lolo nor I apparently are meant to be the King of England however, because we could not pull it out.
We continued on our assignment to find our way back to the car and made our way up to the top of the hill by Boreal which was very tricky because the snow was covered with a glaze of ice! Momma took two big falls on it, one of which she deserved because she was laughing at Lolo who was trying so hard to stop and looked like a cartoon character with his limbs akimbo and that’s when she fell too! Karma, momma, karma 😂
As we got back closer to the trail head we started seeing lots of people sledding, which was surprising to momma because she said the snow is really crappy right now. After we crossed the creek she put us on a leash because there were waaaaaaay more cars and people in the parking lot than the parking lot could even handle! Which totally explained why everything seemed so completely trashed when we got there hours prior.
Momma got us into the car quickly and we made it home with no issues and had a lovely evening dreaming of the snowfall that is to come, and could be happening RIGHT NOW up high. So hopefully next time we go momma doesn’t carry her snowshoes in her backpack the whole time!!!
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Olaf 