Maggies Peaks South P500
Maggies Peaks North

Dec 18, 1999

With: Michael Golden

Etymology
Maggies Peaks South
Maggies Peaks North
Story Photos / Slideshow Map Profile

Michael and I made a trip the Tahoe area in order to do a winter climb to Dicks Peak in Desolation Wilderness. It wasn't until we were nearly to Tahoe that it occurred to me that I left the snowshoes back in San Jose. Duh.

We went hiking anyway, and found the 12-30" of snow rather tough going. It hadn't snowed in over a week, but the cold temperatures in Tahoe kept the snow from consolidating, leaving us with some decent powder on the northeast and north slopes we were climbing. "Decent" for skiing and snowboarding anyway, not for hiking. We had lots of post-holing up to our knees and thighs, our boots were getting wet, and we were getting tired.

We didn't get even 1/3 of the way to Dicks. Even with snowshoes we wouldn't have stood a chance, but without them we were helpless. I began to think its a long dayhike in summer, and impossible (for me, anyway) in winter. We did manage to climb a couple of lesser points called Maggies Peaks, not the manliness of "Dicks Peak" as we had planned. These provided us some amusement. The northern summit was the more interesting, having some fun class 3-4 rock to climb for forty or fifty feet on the south side. Michael was content to watch me scramble up one route before joining me by an easier alternative on the southeast side. The southern peak is the higher of the two, so we post-holed our way up that one to at least say we made it to the top of something. yay. The southern peak is completely covered in forest, so we didn't have any views for our trouble. Afterwards, we beat a retreat for the comforts of civilization in South Lake Tahoe.

Continued...


Submit online comments or corrections about the story.

More of Bob's Trip Reports

This page last updated: Thu Feb 7 08:36:05 2013
For corrections or comments, please send feedback to: snwbord@hotmail.com