Mount Tallac

Happy belated Earth Day — but this one actually happened right on it, Saturday, April 22, 2023. A big Sierra snow year meant Tallac was still deep in its winter coat well into spring, and the familiar talus fields from the last two trips up were buried under a real, sustained snowpack the whole way to the summit ridge.

Every step above treeline took real effort, kicking through snow that hadn't gone anywhere in months, sometimes postholing, sometimes finding a firm crust to walk on — sometimes it's necessary to take life one snowy step at a time, and this climb was a good reminder of that. The reward at the top made all of it worth it: Lake Tahoe's full blue sweep laid out below, Fallen Leaf Lake and Cascade Lake tucked into the foreground, and the granite peaks of Desolation Wilderness still buried in white in every direction.

Arms out on the summit rocks, one of those moments that's hard to put into words but easy to feel — genuinely one of the best views this mountain has ever given me, and I've been up here more than once now. Already looking forward to the next one.

Second time up Tallac, four years after the first, and it's just as good the second time around. Started at the Desolation Wilderness boundary sign near the trailhead and worked up through forest before breaking out onto the long talus slopes below the summit ridge — one of my hiking partners carried an umbrella against the sun the whole way up, which turned out to be a smart move once we cleared the trees.

The summit views are what make this hike a Tahoe classic: Cascade Lake and Emerald Bay directly below, the full blue sweep of Lake Tahoe beyond, and the granite peaks of Desolation Wilderness — Pyramid, Dicks, Jacks — stretched out in the other direction, still holding patches of July snow. We found the old carved 'TALLAC' trail marker on the way down, half-buried in the talus below the true summit.

The best moment of the day happened on the way down: we came across a couple on the trail whose dog had completely run out of steam on the rocky descent, so I ended up carrying the dog on my shoulders for a good stretch of the trail to help them out. Small-world moments like that are half the reason I love hiking with other people around — you never know who you'll end up helping, or how a day is going to turn into a story.

Mount Tallac was one of my early Tahoe summits, back in June 2018. The classic route past Floating Island Lake and Cathedral Lake, then the long push up the exposed talus to the ridge — it's a hike that's earned its reputation as one of the best in the whole Tahoe Basin. I don't have photos surviving from that first trip, but the mountain made enough of an impression that I went back to do it again four years later.