Red Lake Peak & Stevens Peak

Red Lake Peak has a claim to fame most people driving over Carson Pass have no idea they're looking at: it's one of the two candidates (along with neighboring Stevens Peak) for the exact spot where John C. Frémont and Charles Preuss became the first Europeans to ever see Lake Tahoe, back in February 1844, in the middle of a desperate winter crossing of the Sierra. Starting from the PCT trailhead at the pass, the route follows the ridgeline north with no real trail for most of it — just open, above-treeline ground that's easy enough to follow by sight, until the final push to Red Lake Peak's true summit, which requires an actual Class 3 scramble up a loose volcanic summit block to touch the real high point.

From there, the ridge keeps going to Stevens Peak, a couple of miles further along open, rolling terrain with almost no elevation lost in between — one of those rare ridge walks where bagging a second summit barely costs you anything extra. The views the whole way are enormous: Lake Tahoe to the north, the Desolation Wilderness beyond it, Round Top and the Sisters to the south, and Hope Valley and the Alpine County high country spreading out in every other direction. A small, brilliantly clear lake tucked into the ridge added one more great stop along the way that had nothing to do with either summit.

Two Tahoe-area classics in one day, a genuine scramble at the top of one of them, and a direct line to a piece of Sierra Nevada history most people never even notice from the highway below.