Most of the adventures I go on are with my momma and my brother, Lolo. My daddy is busy a lot with work and school so he always has to stay home and do homework. But every once in a while we get lucky and he comes to adventure with us! The only downside is that Lolo and I have to ride in the backseat together (because when he isn’t there we are naughty and take turns riding up front with momma.)
All day Saturday daddy was busy doing homework so that he could go to the mountains with us on Sunday. He even rented a pair of snowshoes so we could do a proper mountain adventure! Momma wanted us to get up early so that we could snowshoe and still make it home in time for her Vikings game (which ended up being a TOTAL disaster).
So we woke up early, got in the car and drove to Tahoe. As we were getting closer momma kept noticing the temperature reading on the car was getting colder and colder. That was the part about getting an early start I guess she didn’t really think through! Although she says you kind of have to start early on weekends anyways just to get a parking spot!!
We stopped to gear up at the Carson Pass Sno-Park which goes out towards Lake Winnemucca and Round Top Lake. It is a beautiful area, and very high in elevation, pretty much the highest place to park in the Tahoe area that we know of, which did not help the temperature – it was five degrees – 05F – when we started.
In the parking lot there were quite a few backcountry skiers gearing up, and a boy and his dog, Simba that we sniffed out while momma put on our paw wax and coats. We hardly ever wear coats but momma said it was cold enough that we had to!
We started off just as the sun was coming over the mountains and Lolo and I had a lot of fun running around in the deep powder that is up in the area, until I started getting balls of ice and snow in my paws. Momma kept on stopping to try to clear them out, but the problem is sometimes she just is pulling fur out with the balls of ice and snow! She also kept wanting to take pictures, even though her phone was dying because it was too cold. I think you can tell how I was feeling in lots of these pictures. 🙃
Eventually I figured out that if I stayed in the snowshoe track or the skin track, there was less loose snow to get balled up in my toes, so that’s what I did.
Ooops, not in the tracks here.
As the sun got higher it got really bright, so momma made me put on my goggles. I was so cold that I didn’t mind wearing them at all today, which was a bit unusual for me. Also, don’t be annoying me with questions like “why doesn’t Loki where goggles?” (That’s what my daddy always says to momma and it drives her crazy!!) It’s because he is not trained to wear them like I am yet. I am very easy to train with lots of things and he is not. So he just has to risk going snowblind for now until he gets better adjusted to them.
When we got to Lake Winnemucca momma and daddy had to decide where to go next. It was cold enough that we weren’t trying to just hang around and enjoy the scenery you know, and even though momma wanted to go snowshoe across a frozen lake she wasn’t TOTALLY sure it was frozen enough for doing that on! And can you imagine falling in when it was THIS COLD out? Me neither!
So they decided to press on to Round Top Lake, which is a steeper climb than the rest of the hike – by far. Momma loves that in snowshoe season you can just go wherever you want, so she tried to take the path she preferred to get there while daddy kept wanting to cut in a different way. Momma is used to always doing whatever she wants though, so that’s what we did!
Up near Round Top Lake there was a group of people camping, so we stayed away from them while momma reapplied our Musher’s Wax and gave us some water. Even though we eat lots of snow, we sometimes will drink a little water even in the cold weather! We then walked along Round Top lake and kept going along the ridge until they could see a ski resort called Kirkwood. It was there that momma and daddy decided that Lolo and I were just too cold, so back we went!
As we descended we saw lots of skiers making their way in (some of which thought I looked SO CUTE in my winter gear), and daddy suggested that next time we go up this way he and momma rent skis! We have never skied with momma or daddy and frankly find skis to be a little odd. When one skier was going past us Lolo was very curious about what was happening and momma had to yell his name like 3 times before he came back to us! After that momma made sure he was next to her every time we saw someone on skis, which was quite a bit more on the way back to the car.
The wind had really picked up as well so we were sooooo happy to get in the car so that we could take off our jackets and lick our feet! The total mileage for momma and daddy was just over 7 miles, but it was as fast as you could go since the weather wasn’t really the kind where you stop and look around when your dogs are chilly! Of course, because I was so cold in my toes momma made me practice wearing booties on walks around town the next couple of days, but they rubbed the TOPS of my toes (and let me tell you, like my goggles I am a GOOD BOY about putting things like that on!). But seriously, 🙄
It was a great day and daddy did such a good job keeping up with us on his rented snowshoes. Not one problem with them or him at the elevation (which can be hard if you don’t hike in Tahoe all the time like the rest of us!).
I guess we will see if momma and daddy ever do actually gear up to ski here with us – a lot depends on how the winter conditions go (WE NEED MORE SNOW!!!) and when daddy will FINALLY finish his MBA school in March.
Olaf 