*Photo courtesy of Google Images
Last year, I spent Independence Day on top of Incline Peak overlooking Lake Tahoe with one of the Meetup groups I often hike with. It was an amazing experience and seeing five fireworks shows simultaneously at different villages around the lake was unique in my 4th of July history. When the group scheduled a similar event this year, I jumped on the chance to go again. Unlike last year though, this year the plan was to hike up to Jesse's Peak, the highest point on Chickadee Ridge. This peak is a couple of miles east of and a couple of hundred feet lower than Incline Peak, but should offer very similar views if the Lake Tahoe holiday festivities.
Meeting at the Sierra Summit Park and Ride around 6:45 PM, the 26 of us carpooled up Mt. Rose highway to the Incline Lake Parking area. Knowing it would get much colder at 9,200' after the sun goes down, everyone packed a few layers. In addition, the group always packs a nice spread of snacks and adult beverages. I ended up bringing two bottles of wine, some hummus and pretzels and some Jarlsberg cheese, which ended up making for a very heavy little pack when added to my standard day-hiking gear.
Surprisingly, there is still a fair amount of snow in the forest up here. Though the ridge we travel on is slightly south-facing, it is pretty heavily forested, meaning lots of shade to help save the snow. It's also worth noting the Forest Service's efforts to eliminate the small underbrush in this area that can be dangerous in terms of wildfire fuel during the summer. The really have done a nice job of cleaning most of it out this year. Through this section, we don't really have a trail, but it's really difficult to get lost in this area and many of us have a lot of experience hiking, snowshoeing, and skiing this ridge. Eventually, we meet up with the Tahoe Rim Trail for a bit and follow it to the base of the very steep northwestern side of Jesse's Peak. From this point, we scramble over and through more snow banks and many large granite boulders before reaching a large clearing on the top.
From here, we find a big flat granite slab that will serve as our table for the evening. Everyone huddles around it and starts unpacking food. I open a bottle of wine to share and start taking some great shots of the sunset over Mt. Rose and Relay Peak to the west. I'm always amazed at friendly this group of people are. While there are a lot of newcomers this trip, I think we make them feel incredibly welcome, as we all fill our bellies with the feast we brought up the mountain. I comment that people really need to eat and drink everything because I don't want to carry it back down. Others nod in agreement.
As the hour gets later and night sky above Lake Tahoe darkens to reveal a beautiful starscape, we begin to see fireworks in the distance. First around Tahoe City, then at Glenbrook. Next Carson City to the east and Reno to the northeast. We are couple of thousand feet above the shows and in some cases twenty or thirty miles away, but it doesn't diminish the spectacle at all. In fact, seeing so many fireworks on the shores of the amazing Lake Tahoe simultaneously, enhances the evening beyond words. While there is plenty of friendly chatter, there are also moments of silence as we all watch with wonder at the celebration of the birth of our Nation, some 243 years ago.
Finally, the firework finales cease and the group begins to pack up our waste and gear in preparation for a trip back down the mountain. It was still quite light when we arrived, but now we will be traversing this rugged landscape in the dark. Luckily, we all brought headlamps and other light sources. It requires a bit of route-finding, scrambling, and even some glissading down the snowbanks, but we arrive back at the cars safe and sound after the 4.3 mile round trip. It's a bit after 11 PM and having to work tomorrow morning, I need to get myself home and into bed. That said, I wouldn't have missed this wonderful tradition with such great people.
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