Twin Peaks South

Despite the above, we still had a nice outing, covering about 7mi over the course of about four hours. The initial mile and a half along the road and then through forest was mostly flat and tame, not very scenic. The trail then climbs onto the long ridgeline on the northwest side of Fallen LeafLake. This part is quite scenic, with fine views overlooking the lake as well as far views to the north across Lake Tahoe. Mt. Tallac rises dramatically to the west. The trail then drops off the ridge through more forest, going past Floating Island Lake (indistiguishable from a meadow when frozen and covered in snow). Up to this point, the trail is well-packed and easy to follow as we'd left the snowshoes in the back of my pack. Where the trail veers left off to Cathedral Lake, the packed trail continues upslope, growing steeper. Jackie began to flag here, pausing to rest often or remove a layer, and we still had more than a mile to go with our turnaround time rapidly approaching. I decided to call a halt early, leaving us more time to play around with the snowshoes on the way back. After strapping them to our feet, we left the trail to descend cross-country over untracked snow, never straying too far from the trail. I think Jackie enjoyed this part the most - it was more like the snowshoeing she'd imagined before the trip.

After we'd returned home and had lunch, I went back out by myself for a short hike to Twin Peaks South. This minor summit is found just west of US50 and Lake Valley. I parked south of the summit off Sawmill Rd where a few other cars had parked alongside a bike/hike path. It was less than half a mile to the summit from this point. I was happy to find a network of good use trails that helped with the heavy brush found on this side of the mountain. Because of the southern exposure, there was little snow to deal with and I simply went up in my boots with a pair of ski poles for balance should I run into any snow. I was surprised to find an impressive granite face on this side with several rock climbing parties enjoying an afternoon working their craft. One party was rappeling a large face while another was working on an interesting one-pitch route. I followed along the base of this cragging area to the west to find my way to the top via some mild class 3 scrambling. The summit rocks are large and flat and pockmarked with eroded divots that were all filled with partially melted ice. The highest rock appears to be to the northwest of the larger summit area, a short class 3+ effort. After taking some photos of the surrounding summits (Mt. Tallac, Tahoe Mtn, Twin Peaks North), I dropped off the east side of the summit to find my way back via another series of convenient use trails. This shorter outing took well under an hour, but made for a good way to finish the day...