I had suggested to Steve and Tom that instead of our usual Friday
hike/picnic in the
local hills, perhaps we could do a weekend trip for something a little
different. We settled on snowshoeing in the Tahoe area and drove up on Thursday
night for a few days of said activity. Tom was worried about his knees, so
requested I find someplace flat. To that end, we drove up to Luther Pass to
spend Friday morning tooling around the Grass Lake area, a flat, snow-covered
meadow this time of year. The meadow lies between Thompson Peak on one side
and Waterhouse Peak on the other, and makes for a very picturesque way to spend
2-3 hours. Afterwards we drove back down to South Lake Tahoe where we left Tom
at our motel
while Steve and I went out to climb a few easy peaks in the afternoon. Both
are located in Nevada near the US50/SR28 junction on the east side
of the lake. We
never did get a second day since the others had had enough of the snowshoes
after the one day, so we drove home Saturday morning.
Captain Pomin Rock
There is a snowplay area
right at the junction of US50 and SR28. Access to the
parking lot is off SR28, just north of the junction. From there it's about 3/4mi
WSW to the summit, with around 500ft of gain. There was snow from
the start on the route we followed and the going was pretty easy on
firm snow and moderate slopes. The summit rocks are class 3
and the last 40ft or so on the east side made for
a spicy ascent on the snowshoes. Steve did very well here,
though he did lose one of the baskets on his poles that we were unable to find.
The summit had fine, unobstructed views of the lake which was
covered in a thick fog in its entirety, a sight I don't recall seeing before.
We rested at the summit for about 10min before heading back via the
same route, a bit over an hour for the roundtrip effort.
Peak 7,200ft
This lower summit is found only a quarter mile off SR28 a few miles north of
the first summit. We parked off the road in a pretty crummy location since it
didn't have much view up and down the curve in the road. It took less than
15min to make our way to the summit where we found more
class 3 summit rocks. This one featured a log wedged in a
crack to make the climb easier, though one had to test the log
carefully. The views were similar to the first summit. We
were back easily before 4:30p and called it a day. There are other peaks in the
area that we might have visited with more time, but those will have to wait
for another time...