On Fathers Day, Kate, Ben and I started our project of hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail, which is 165 miles. Doing it piece by piece in day hikes only. We started on the trail where it intersected Ward Creek Blvd just south of Tahoe City a mile or two, in the town of Sunnyside. We went counterclockwise to the lake, hiking south. I used a really sweet app by Guthooks, that shows the trail and tons of waypoints and handy information, plus shows you your location on the map. Between taking photos of wildflowers, messing with my new app, and checking my Garmin GPS (somewhat redundant), Kate often was way ahead of me, as she kept hiking while I fussed around. Ward Creek was running nicely and we had lunch alongside it. The weather was perfect with solid blue skies and nice wind. Wildflowers were simply outstanding. It was the absolute perfect time to take this hike. Prime time. The pictures just do not capture the glory of this trail. The grade was pretty easy until we hit switchbacks heading up to the falls, probably about mile number three. McCloud Falls were at the 4 mile point and we started to feel the beginnings of some aches and pains, so we turned back at that point figuring 8 miles round trip would be plenty that day. Even Ben’s feet or his ankles were getting kinda sore.
The trailhead was about an hour and fifteen from Colfax. We were out on the trail for about 4+ hours. Hiking time to the falls was about 1.5 hours. The TahoeRimTrail.org has some maps on line of the area we hiked here.
