Last week Candace and I celebrated 4 years together. On Tuesday we packed up the car and headed to North Lake Tahoe. For my Maine friends who have never been to Lake Tahoe, I would describe it as Sebago Lake surrounded by the White Mountains, with a few casinos thrown in on the Nevada side. The place is a winter sports paradise with a rich history and perhaps most importantly, excellent beer!
I certainly am a bit of a history buff and part of this trip's adventure was learning about the tragedy of Donner Party. The general idea of the Donner Party story is as follows...more than 40 men, women, and children who were making their way cross country decided to "take a short-cut" to California. They followed the Donner brothers 2 men in their 60's, into the Utah desert without appropriate provisions. Natives attacked the group, stealing horses and destroying wagons and other belongings as they journeyed through Nevada. The group finally somehow made it to Reno. Even today it is never a good idea to spend 5 days in Reno, but back in 1846 it was even a worse plan. They "regrouped" there only to become snowed in soon after entering the Sierra Nevada. The lucky ones survived the next several months by eating rationed food, oxen bones, and eventually each other. Many of them didn't make it out of extreme eastern California with their lives in tact.
Lessons can be learned from every story. First here is that if you don't know where you're going short-cuts often end up being long-cuts. Second if you are setting off into the wilderness, bring enough food with you or know how to catch, hunt, or find food. Today 30 is the new 20 and 40 is the new 30, but in 1846 I'm pretty sure 60 was the new 104. Be careful about who you follow or accept candy from. Finally if you're going to a place where there could be snow, bring skis! We all have a lot to learn from the Donner Party's grave misfortunes.
We had a very un-Donner like vacation in Tahoe. Wednesday we snowshoed up Boreal Ridge. The hike was steep but it was at least 50 degrees with beautiful sunshine. Once we got to the top of the ridge we whipped out our brand new MSR stove and cooked us a dehydrated meal while taking in the pristine view. On Thursday we took a nice hike on the beach at Donner Lake. It was another warm winter day in the 50's, and we had a great time pounding the powder with our snowshoes. After we headed to Truckee to have the most giant hot chocolate I've ever seen.
That night, we had dinner at the
fifty-fifty brew pub in Truckee. The food was good and the beer was impressive. I enjoyed the Base Camp Golden Ale. It was cold and crisp with just a hint of fruit flavor and an extremely smooth finish. A great summertime brew, but I would drink it just about anytime. We ended up bringing back a growler to share with dinner this week. As we were leaving we saw that they have a special, limited edition stout aged in a Jack Daniel's barrel. Come to find out they only sell it at the brewery so we missed out. It would have been terrific to taste.
On Friday we drove south along the western edge of the lake to South Lake Tahoe. The drive was loaded with excellent panoramic views as the surrounding mountains reflected in the lake under blue sky. Then the westward drive home.
