» Mt. Tallac manalang

manalang

01:16:28 am on June 9, 2004 | # |
Tags: travel

One of our goals on our vacation last week was to hike up Mt. Tallac. In October last year, we made an attempt to summit, but ended up turning back 4.8 miles into it (at Gilmore Lake) — just ran out of time. So, last week, we were highly determined to make it up to the 9,732 feet summit of Mt. Tallac.

Map of our GPS tracks (generated by USAPhotoMaps)

You can hike up Tallac from two different trails, one from Fallen Leaf Lake the other from the Glen Alpine Trailhead (the parking lot at the end of the road toward Desolation Wilderness). We took the Glen Alpine trail which is longer but less strenuous. The roundtrip from Glen Alpine is said to be around 11.6 miles, however, it tooks us 12.3 miles due to parts of the trail being covered with snow. The elevation gain is about 3,300 feet, starting at around 6,500 and ending at 9,732. To me, the altitude made this hike a real butt kicker. By around 8,800 feet, I was fighting off a mild case of altitude sickness. To make things worse, we didn’t bring any ibuprofen or electrolyte drinks to prevent this from happening.

Lake Tahoe from the summit of Mt. Tallac… Cathederal Lake and Emerald Bay are in the forefront

South of Mt. Tallac looking onto Gilmore Lake

After almost 6 hours from when we started (10 AM), we made it to the summit. The last two miles were tough. Most of the trail was no where to be found — it was either covered by snow or washed out from the Winter season. Forging on our own trail at about 1 mile per hour and stopping every 20-30 steps, we hit upon a giant mess of granite rocks. After about 20 minutes of rock-hopping, we hit the summit and were instantly presented with 360-degree views of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding Sierras.

GPS reading at the top of Mt. Tallac

The trip back to the car was a downhill breeze and took us about 3 hours to complete. Here’s a picture of Cindy making her way down the “rock garden:”

After 9 hours, we were back at the car, half-eaten by mosquitos –yep, we forgot to bring DEET too. If you go, bring some. All in all, it was one of the best hikes we’ve ever been on. Recommended.