Lake Tahoe - Emerald Bay - Day 3

Lake Tahoe seems very schizophrenic to me. On the one hand, there are places on its shores far removed from all modern conveniences. On the other hand, there are places on its shores called casinos. It's a gambling hiker's paradise.

Following a long day of hiking in the wilderness, we spent our third day relaxing and visiting the more developed parts of Lake Tahoe.

I awoke around six and had freeze-dried ham and scrambled eggs for breakfast. It doesn't sound very tasty, but it beats freeze-dried bagels and cream cheese. M and I loaded our packs and were on the road to the Taylor Creek Visitor Center by eight, which wasn't a late start unless you compared us to B, who had broken camp three hours earlier and was well into his bike ride around the lake by the time we left.

After stopping in at the Visitor Center, we hiked the short Lake of the Sky Trail, which led to an isolated strip of beach along the lake where geese swam in the protected waters of a cove. For a few minutes, we had the shoreline to ourselves, but the arrival of a man and his dog soon disturbed the peace, which I note only because a prominent sign at the beach entrance explicitly said, "No Dogs Allowed".

We returned to the car and made a quick stop at Camp Richardson's general store for cold drinks (I had a thirst for Gatorade) before heading to Vikingsholm for a tour.

Vikingsholm is a Scandinavian-style mansion built by a Mrs. Knight in the late 1920s. It stands at the west end of Emerald Bay and served as Mrs. Knight's summer home for fifteen years. After she passed away in 1945, it (along with the surrounding land and Fannette Island) was sold to the state.

To reach it, one must hike a steep mile down from Highway 89 to the bay. The tour of the house cost five dollars per person and lasted about thirty minutes. Our guide was an elderly lady named Helen Henry Smith. Her parents had been good friends of Mrs. Knight and she had spent fourteen summers at Vikingsholm in her youth.

After the tour, we drove to Timber Cove in South Lake Tahoe and kayaked on the lake. It was my first adventure in a kayak (a double kayak at that), so it took a few strokes to get the steering and timing down pat. We got as far as Regan Beach, about a mile west of our starting point, before turning around.

The entire experience was exhilarating. I was especially stoked that we didn't crash into anybody or tip over. We only ran into trouble when we returned to shore, something the person who gave us our initial instructions neglected to mention how to do.

As we approached the beach and got within earshot of the person onshore (somebody different from before), she shouted, "Are you guys coming in?"

We shouted we were. She shouted that we needed to either come straight in or back in. By the time we understood what she wanted us to do, the waves had turned us sideways and had pushed us too close to shore. I made a few futile strokes with my paddle, but there just wasn't enough room to maneuver. In a matter of seconds, she shouted for us to bail. We got out of the kayak just as another wave propelled it into the line of boats already on the beach.

Afterwards, we made a quick snack and coffee run at the Safeway across the street, dried off back at the beach and then drove to the California/Nevada state line. The casinos stand right on the Nevada side of the border.

Feeling lucky after our narrow escape from the killer kayak, I decided to try my hand at the slot machines. We wandered into Harrah's and found the quarter slots. I won twenty-five cents from the first machine, but lost fifty to the second one I played. To make up for the lost quarter, I only took a five-minute shower that night (two-and-a-half minutes shorter than normal).
We left the casino and explored the Marriott Grand Residence Club, which has stores (North Face, Patagonia), restaurants (Fire and Ice, Wolfgang Puck Express) and Heavenly Ski Base - Gondola. While we skipped the gondola, we did dine at Wolfgang Puck Express, which had decent food for a reasonable price. It put me in mind of Sonoma Chicken Coop.

After dinner, we returned to camp, showered, sat around the campfire, watched the light leave the sky and retired for the night.