Two Years!!

We made it two years and we still like each other :) That's an accomplishment that deserves a dangerous hike into the middle of nowhere if you ask me! Derrick and I got up early on Tuesday morning (thanks a lot East Coast time!) so we were on the trail by 9:30 AM. We hiked Mount Rose. It promised a beautiful waterfall, a route to the summit if you wanted, or a 5 mile loop if you chose you weren't up for the summit. It got great reviews and we headed in without any trepidation. We should have known we were in for a tough day when, with our first step, we were blasted by some really hard, fast wind! Our ears were numb! Besides the wind the trail started pretty tamely.

We had to take breaks every so often because the elevation was getting to us. I don't remember being in a place before where I could really tell that the elevation affected me but it certainly did here!

Then we saw this!

A patch of snow that eventually lost all resemblance of a trail and turned to this:

We walked out for about 100 yards then decided we had to be wrong and turned around. Once getting back to the trail we decided we had been right the first time so we located a set of footprints and proceeded to follow those footprints along the whole trail. Sometimes they would venture off to a vista point and we'd have to backtrack and find a different set of footprints to follow. There was no one else on the trail either...we just crossed our fingers and marched on. Our plan B was to just follow our footprints back.  Every once in a while the snow would clear and we would find the original path. Those were very happy moments filled with fist pumps and cheers!

Whenever we found a part of the trail not covered in snow, we built a cairn. We had seen one or two  at the beginning of the trail and they were shining beacons of light for us! We were also thankful we had made them on the way back.

The views all along the way were breath-taking! We were very happy with our hike choices while in Tahoe. The vista hike the day before gave us stunning views of the lake while this hike gave us more mountain views.

The snow was crazy deep! If you weren't careful you would sink down to your knee in some places. And it was like walking in sand the entire way. Our calves were burning by the end!

Thank goodness for granola bars and Famous Amos!!

 

The halfway point was a waterfall about 2.5 miles in. We were so excited when we found it!! I still can't really believe we were following a trail. I don't know how the people before us, without footprints to follow, knew where they were going. 

This will show you how deep the snow was! We think this sign was supposed to be closer to eye level. 

Sunk up to my knee!

See that little strip of snow between the grass and the bottom of the waterfall? Derrick and I walked down there and I almost fell into the waterfall! All of the sudden my foot fell through the snow and it made a hole straight down to rushing water. Apparently that snow is not on solid ground...it's somehow just bridged over the waterfall. We somehow made it back across without anymore incidents. 

 

This was supposed to be the half-way point of the hike. We looked for the other part of the trail for about 30 minutes including an incredibly steep hike up past the waterfall but we ended up giving up and going back home the way we came. There were a couple trails around there, one being 18 miles long, and we didn't want to accidentally end up on the wrong trail and end up on the other side of the lake without the car!

I still can't believe we made it! That night we celebrated two years of marriage at a little steakhouse called Old Range Steakhouse. It was one of the few restaurants in town and had pretty good reviews. We had reservations for 7:30 and showed up at 7:00. The guy said "Thank God". Apparently they don't get many diners that late and they were able to close earlier now that we had arrived earlier. The food was good and the atmosphere was strange. It was the perfect anniversary day.

I am so thankful to have been able to spend the past two years with my amazing husband. He is the calm to my crazy and I wouldn't want to be with anyone else! I love him so much and he loves me just as much...and I know that for a fact. That's pretty cool :)

Next up! Our final day in Tahoe and a feature on the many trees of Tahoe!